"Yes, I did, and I don't repent it. In fact, I'm mighty glad I did, for I'm a deal more comfortable up here than I was down there. Of course there's the smell of the washing, but if it's bad I holler out to them to shut the door; and most times I don't mind it, and where I lie I can see 'em in there, going about and ironing, and fussing; and it ain't half so quiet and dull as it was. And then of nights, when I want anything, I can just give a call, and Mrs. Seymour's up in a minute! Jem said as it would be so, but I wouldn't credit it before." "And what made you decide?" asked Meg, wondering in this mixture of self-interest and helplessness what had been the reason that influenced her at the bottom. "It was one night," said the invalid with a softened look, "I was took awful bad. I don't know what it was made me so bad; but I had told Jem that evening, flat, that nothing on earth should move me out of the room where I'd lain for ten years, and it was no use his asking me. "Well, as I said, I was took awful bad in my chest, and I laid there groaning for a long time. At last I managed to knock the wall, and got Jem to come to the door. "'Oh, I'm dying,' says I; 'come in and see what you can do for me, Jem.' "He'd put on his things when he heard me first; and in he came and raised me up, and then he goes up-stairs and calls his mother. But as luck would have it, the neighbour on the ground floor was ill too, and Mrs. Seymour couldn't leave her for a moment just then. "When Jem come up and told me that, I thought I should ha' died straight away. But he comes over to me as quiet and kind as any woman, and he says, 'Miss Hobson, don't you take on; I'll do all as I can for you, if you'll tell me what to do.' "So I told him to prop me up, for I couldn't fetch my breath, you see; and he goes and gets some hot water from his mother's boiler, and puts a shawl over my head, and makes me breathe the steam; and when I was a little easier he gets me a cup of tea, as did me a world of good. "Once or twice while he was bending over me when I was so very bad, he says to me sort of soft-like, 'Look to Jesus, Miss Hobson--there's nought but Jesus can save a dying soul.' "But I heard him without taking much notice. "When I was a bit better, and had done gasping so bad, he sits down by my side as kind as any nurse, and he says to me, 'Miss Hobson, I'm a deal more anxious for you to get the Breath of Life than ever I am for you to be able to breathe easy. I wish you would think of that!' he says. "And I says to him, 'What do you mean by the Breath of Life?' "And he says, 'It's coming to Jesus, and getting forgiveness of all our sins from Him. That's the Breath of Life!' "'I don't know how to come,' says I. "'Ask Him to draw you!' says he. 'He tells you, "Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out." If you'll come to Jesus, you'll have new life.'