Ah, if she could have answered: "It was to make you well that you may get out again." But even Kent dared not say that. She struggled to find courage to forbid the operation, but she dared not, she was afraid of her brother. Kent stood there waiting; she became conscious of that at last, and looked despairingly at him. He stooped down to her. "Your brother generally sends some of the hospital people to disinfect and arrange everything," he said, gently. "Is it to be to-day?" whispered she, weeping bitterly. "No; but the cleaning and airing must be begun today. The adjoining rooms must be used, too." She had laid her head down again beside the boy, she made no answer; then she heard him go. When the minister came home he rushed up at once to the sick room and was not a little surprised to find his mother there and--Sissel Aune! The latter was keeping watch, the boy was cross, and did not want anyone near him but his mother; not even his father, for he could still smell tobacco about him, although he had given up smoking. Tuft found Josephine lying on his sofa in the study, overcome with despair, and talking quite incoherently; "Doomed to death!" she would answer to nearly all his questions. One of the deaconesses came over in the afternoon and assumed the management of affairs; she brought strange servants with her; their home seemed broken up, and the scouring and cleaning sounded like the planing of a coffin. Their own servants all sorrowful, poor old grandmother in tears; and when they heard the noise caused by moving the boy's bed into another room, they sat trembling hand in hand. Fancy, now, if anyone were to say: "It is a good thing for the parents, that their boy is dying. Of course they can't think so now, but they will come to see it in that light;" fancy if anyone were brutal enough to say such a thing to them? Tuft felt bound to speak to Josephine about it, and confessed that these words would have wounded him deeply. She pressed his hand in silence. When the evening came and all was quiet, they were both up-stairs with the boy and they fancied he already bore the mark of death! He fell asleep holding his mother's hand, and then Tuft gently led her away. She consented to be led now; an extra bed had been put up in the spare room, it was part of all the moving and arranging that had gone on. The next day from early morning the parents were in with the little boy. As soon as they left, he was to be moved back to his old room where all was ready for the operation. At ten o'clock the doctors came. Josephine was lying on the sofa in the study. She stopped her ears as soon as she heard them; the carpets were taken up so that the slightest creak of a boot was heard. She would not be comforted, nor let herself be reasoned with, and fell into that half-unconscious state she had before been in; she wanted to go up to the boy, he might die on their hands.