"Would you like to see a clergyman?" she had asked on the previous evening: and an abrupt negative was returned. Bertha could not force the matter. All she could do through the long night-hours, was to watch for opportunities to whisper sometimes a short prayer, to murmur occasionally a few words from the Bible, or the verse of a hymn. Bertha was a good and earnest girl. It might be quite true, as Prue had said, that she was naturally eager and restless, naturally fond of work and fond of change; but also she was a girl of right principle and of deep religious feeling, a "servant of Jesus Christ" in heart. Her efforts met with small response, however. If Cecilia heard, she did not seem to heed, with one exception. Bertha, standing by her side, said slowly— "'Let the unrighteous man forsake his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him: and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.'" "What?" cried Cecilia, with a startling suddenness. "'He will abundantly pardon!'" reverently repeated Bertha. "Will He?" "If we turn to Him, and forsake our unrighteous thoughts." Cecilia sighed, and said no more. At six o'clock, according to arrangement, Prue came, and Bertha left the room. Miss Anderson greeted Prue with a look of welcome; strange to say, warmer than any she had accorded to Bertha. Something in the quiet and self-contained bearing of the elder sister attracted her, while Bertha's eager pretty manner seemed to have a reverse effect. The last hour there had been some slight improvement; yet Prue noted a strangeness of the sick woman's eyes. "Come here. I want to speak to you," Cecilia said impatiently. "Is that other girl gone? She means well, but she worries me. She will not let me alone, and I can't get to Lettice. I want my little Lettice back again. That girl will not let her come. Everything that I love is going from me. Call Lettice, if you please." Prue knelt down on a stool by her side, wearing a face less impassive than often, because it was full of pity. "I am going to stay with you for a little while," she said. "Lettice shall come by-and-by." CHAPTER V. THEIR NON-ARRIVAL. SATURDAY afternoon! Felix had been for a sharp walk, to get rid of certain lonely sensations, which were likely enough to assail a young fellow during his first few days away from home. Not that he had left his home, but that his home had left him: and this made matters worse. For he had not the interest of new surroundings. He was in the same place and under the same roof as before; only all that had made the house his home was withdrawn from it.