"Girls," she said, breaking the hush; she was not looking at them; her eyes were resting on a heavy gold band which encircled her finger. "Girls, I have been thinking—" the same simple words with which she had been wont to preface her sweet and helpful thoughts to them during all the days gone by. It struck them like a knell. Was it possible that this might be the last time? "I have not been sure about this ring until to-day. There was a time when I thought to take it into the grave with me; but why should my poor worn-out body be decked with a ring? It will not need it in the resurrection morning; I will not let this ring lie in the dust and wait. I will leave it to work, while I go away to rest. Girls, some of you knew Kent Pierson? You did, Nannie? Yes, and you all know he is in Africa to-day, working for Christ. But you did not know that I was to go out to him, did you? When he put this ring on my finger I thought I would surely be well enough to go in another year. But I am going to Heaven instead, and I have been thinking that our ring should do some of my work for Africa. Will you take it, girls, and change it into books for the library? Books about the needs of the heathen? and the work of the missionaries, and tell all the boys and girls who read them that those books are Kent Pierson's voice, calling them to service?" The tears came then, and low sobbing. Not from fair Jennie; her eyes were bright and her face smiling. "Don't cry," she said gently, "you need not; for me, you know, all the bitterness is passed. I am too near home to cry. I suppose it will be hard for Kent for a little while, but then, it will soon be over, and Heaven is as near to Africa as it is to you." They kissed her silently that day—their voices were not to be trusted—and went out softly, as from the guest chamber of the royal palace. Nearer they were to the invisible presence than they had known. That very night, "or ever she was aware," Jennie saw the "shining of His face." No noise, or sound of wings, or rush of music, at least so far as those left behind can tell: "They watched her breathing through the night, Her breathing soft and low, As in her breast the wave of life Kept heaving to and fro. "Their very hopes belied their fears, Their fears their hopes belied. They thought her dying when she slept, And sleeping when she died." The plain gold band was exchanged for books, and it came to pass that an upper shelf in the Penn Avenue library was cleared and held as sacred ground for those five books. Never had books been more carefully chosen than these, and as the pastor marked them, "The Kent Pierson Library, presented by Jennie Stuart, gone to Heaven," he almost wondered whether there hovered over him angel witnesses to see whether his part of the commission were well done. "It lies around us like a cloud, The world we cannot see."