Grace and Cassy made daily visits to their sick friend. Mahla assured them that her writing-desk was one of her greatest comforts: it was almost as good as a sister. When she was too feeble to sit up, it was placed on the bed near her elbow, and she would lie and look over its contents, counting the sheets of perfumed note-paper, and feeling their gloss with her fingers. When strong enough to write, she liked to copy poems in a neat round hand with her gold pen. "See how she that desk does love!" said Mrs. Linck, breaking her English into small pieces, as she always did when very earnest. "O, Miss Grace, your kindness forget never I shall." Grace felt inclined to kiss Mahla and to cry. "O, Mahla," said she, "if you're only well, won't we girls have good times in the upper room when school takes up?" Mahla smiled sadly. "I'm going some-place else." "Some-place else? O, Mahla, you're too sick!" "Not too sick to go to heaven, Gracie!" Grace shuddered, and hid her face in Mahla's bosom. "It don't frighten me a bit, Gracie." "But, Mahla, darling, it's so far off!" "O, Gracie, no, indeed; it seems as if heaven was right in this room." "So dark and cold down there," sobbed Grace. "But I'll not be there!" Mahla whispered. "Not in the grave a minute! I don't know what way I'll go up to heaven, but the Lord will know. O, he loves me so!" After this conversation, Grace and Cassy walked home together very quietly. Grace looked at the fair, green earth and soft sky, and remembered some of the poetry Mahla had copied:-- "The world is lovely. O, my God, I thank Thee that I live." As Grace repeated these lines to herself, she drew closer to her friend. "O, Cassy, it's so lonesome to be in the grave!" Yet Mahla, whom she pitied, was happier on her sick bed than even these joyous girls. Her clinging trust in God was more delightful than opal skies, and ruddy health, and even the dearest friendships. The Children's Fair was held in the Music Hall, and was fully attended. Robin said there was no room for more people, unless you drove up some nails. The benevolent enterprise had been undertaken by a handful of young girls, who had worked with great zeal in the very warmest days of summer; and since this fact was well known, it was enough in itself to bring a crowd of people out of mere curiosity. The little heroines of the evening, dressed in white, with wreaths on their heads, looked as fresh as lilies, but kept modestly in the background, leaving the management of affairs to older people. It was very much like other fairs--ice cream, cake, chicken salad, sandwiches, saucers of peaches and cream; then singing, some of which "jingled," Horace said, and he liked it. Grace held up her hands in horror. "You queer boy, a 'jingle,' as you call it, is a discord, and it sets my ears on edge! It's worse than the creaking of a horrid grindstone!"