“You’ll send for her; and if I’m dead when she comes, tell her I tried to be a dutiful son, and was always sorry when I failed. Tell her I love my mother more than she ever dreamed; and tell _Ad_——” Here he paused, and the forehead knit itself into great wrinkles, so intense were his thoughts. “Tell Ad—no, not tell her anything. She’ll be glad when I’m dead, and trip back from my grave so gaily!” He was growing terribly excited now, and Aunt Eunice hailed the coming of the doctor with delight. Hugh knew him, offering his pulse and putting out his tongue of his own accord. The doctor counted the rapid pulse, numbering even then 130 per minute, noted the rolling eyeballs and the dilation of the pupils, felt the fierce throbbing of the swollen veins upon the temple, and then shook his head. Half conscious, half delirious, Hugh watched him nervously, until the great fear at his heart found utterance in words, “Must I die?” “We hope not. We’ll do what we can to save you. Don’t think of dying, my boy,” was the physician’s reply, as he turned to Aunt Eunice, and gave out the medicine, which must be most carefully administered. Too much agitated to know just what he said, Aunt Eunice listened as one who heard not, noticing which the doctor said, “You are not the right one to take these directions. Is there nobody here less nervous than yourself? Who was that young lady standing by the door when I came in. The one in white, I mean, with such a quantity of curls.” “Miss Johnson—our visitor. She can’t do anything,” Aunt Eunice replied, trying to compose herself enough to know what she was doing. But the doctor thought differently. Something of a physiognomist, he had been struck with the expression of Alice’s face, and felt sure that she would be a more efficient aid than Aunt Eunice herself. “I’ll speak to her,” he said, stepping to the hall. But Alice was gone. She had stood by the sick room door long enough to hear Hugh’s impassioned words concerning his probable death—long enough to hear him ask that she might pray for him; and then she stole away to where no ear, save that of God, could hear the earnest prayer that Hugh Worthington might live—or that dying, there might be given him a space in which to grasp the faith, without which the grave is dark and terrible indeed. “I’m glad I came here now,” she whispered, as she rose from her knees. “I know my work in part, and may God give me strength to do it.” “Is you talkin’ to God, Miss Alice?” said a little voice, and Mug’s round black face looked cautiously in. “Yes, Muggins, I was talking to God.” “I’d mighty well like to know what you done say,” was Mug’s next remark, as she ventured across the threshold. “I asked him to make your Master Hugh well again, or else take him to heaven,” was Alice’s reply; whereupon the great tears gathered in the eyes of the awe-struck child, who continued, “I wish I could ax God, too. Would he hear a black nigger like me?”