She looked at me with those deep, intense eyes. A new light seemed to come into them; it overspread her face, and lit up her thin, wan features with a strange glow. 'It must be so,' she said, 'else why were you led here? God must have sent you to me for that!' 'No doubt he did, madam. Let it comfort you to think so.' 'It does, oh! it does. And, O my Father!' and she looked up to Him as she spoke: 'I thank thee! Thy poor, sinful, dying child thanks thee; and, oh! bless _him_, forever bless him, for it!' I turned away to hide the emotion I could not repress. A moment after, not seeing the little boy, I asked: 'Where is your son?' 'Here, sir.' And turning down the bed-clothing, she showed him sleeping quietly by her side, all unconscious of the misery and the sin around him, and of the mighty crisis through which his young life was passing. Saying I would return on the following day, I shortly afterward bade her 'good-night,' and left the house. CHAPTER III. It was noon on the following day when I again visited the house in Anthony street. As I opened the door of the sick woman's room, I was startled by her altered appearance. Her eye had a strange, wild light, and her face already wore the pallid hue of death. She was bolstered up in bed, and the little boy was standing by her side, weeping, his arms about her neck. I took her hand in mine, and in a voice which plainly spoke my fears, said: 'You are worse!' In broken gasps, and in a low, a very low tone, her lips scarcely moving, she answered: 'No! I am--better--much--better. I knew you--were coming. She told me so.' '_Who_ told you so?' I asked, very kindly, for I saw that her mind was wandering. 'My mother--she has been with me--all the day--and I have been so--so happy, so--_very_ happy! I am going now--going with her--I've only waited--for you!' 'Say no more now, madam, say no more; you are too weak to talk.' 'But I _must_ talk. I am--dying, and I must tell--you all before--I go!' 'I would gladly hear you, but you have not strength for it now. Let me get something to revive you.' She nodded assent, and looking at her son, said: 'Take Franky.' The little boy kissed her, and followed me from the room. When we had reached the upper-landing, I summoned the woman of the house, and said to him: 'Now, Franky, I want you to stay a little while with this good lady; your mother would talk with me.' 'But mother says she's dying, sir,' cried the little fellow, clinging closely to me; 'I don't want her to die, sir. Oh! I want to be with her, sir!' 'You shall be, very soon, my boy; your _mother_ wants you to stay with this lady now.'