I gave Katie something to do, telling her to make coffee for Miss Axtell as soon as possible; and with a few more words, meant to be conciliating to Cooky, I took up the glass Katie brought me, and went back. They had carried Miss Axtell up-stairs. Sophie was taking her wrappings off. How carefully she had guarded herself, even in her illness, for the walk! and now, all the nerve of fever gone, she lay as white and strengthless as she had done in the tower. I went for Doctor Eaton, on my own responsibility. "He would come in a few minutes," was the message to me. Sophie said "that she would stay, for I must go home." As she said so, a little wavering cloud of doubt went across her forehead, eclipsing, for a moment, its light; then all was bright again. "What is it?" I asked. "Something for Aaron, I know." Sophie looked the least bit like a rather old child asking for sugar-candy; but she said,-- "Just you tie his cravat for him, there's a good sister; don't forget; that's all. After that you may go to sleep, and sleep all day. You look as if you needed it." She came to say one more forgotten thing,-- "Just see that Aaron gets a white handkerchief: he's fond of gay colors, you know. Two Sundays ago, when I wasn't looking, he carried off to church one of Chloe's turbans, and deliberately shook out the three-cornered article, and never knew the difference till his face told him it was cotton instead of silk." I promised extra caution on the second point, and had just closed the lower door--Aaron was already holding the gate open for me--when the softly purplish bands of hair came again into the wind. "One thing more, Anna: _do_ see what he takes for a sermon. The text is in the fifth chapter of First Thessalonians. He will certainly pick up a Fast-day or a Thanksgiving sermon, if you don't put the right one into his hands." "Hasn't he two sermons on the same chapter?" I asked. "Yes, half a dozen. You'll know the one for to-day; I wrote it for him the day he had the headache; the text is"--and there was a little moment of thought; then she said--"'Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.' Aaron's waiting; don't keep him; good bye!" and she was closed in. I felt faint and weary, now that there was no more to be done. The village-people were awake. Village-sounds were abroad in the Sunday atmosphere, vibrant with holiness. The farmers stopped in their care for their animals, and spent a moment in innocent wonder of the reason why their pastor should be abroad thus early.