But Rachel said it seemed to her as if the blessed Lord would most surely not fail to understand the poor lad who could not understand about Him, yet had served so faithfully the best he knew. And she almost thought she heard a voice from heaven saying, "Poor Tim! the Master knows. You have done the best you could. Come home!" It was not until the poor lad was dead that they found what he had been so tightly clasping in his hand. It was a fragment of paper containing a few words written by Job Forster, of which Tim had indeed "taken care," as the clasp of the lifeless hand proved too well. The words were,-- "Rachel, be of good cheer, as I am. I am hurt on the shoulder, but not so bad. They are taking me with Roger to Oxford goal. His wound is in the side, painful at first, but Dr. Antony got the ball out, and says he will do well. Thee must not fret, nor try to come to us. It would hurt thee and do us no good. The Lord careth." Rachel read this letter, with every word made emphatic, by her certainty that Job would make as light as possible of any trouble, by her knowledge that his pen was not that of a ready writer, and by her sense of what she would have done herself in similar circumstances. "Rachel!"--the word, she knew, had taken him a minute or two to spell out, and it meant a whole volume of esteem and love; and by the same measure, "hurt" meant "disabled;" and "not so bad," simply not in immediate peril of life; and "thee must not come," to her heart meant "come if thou canst, though I dare not bid thee." It was not Rachel's way to let trouble make her helpless, or even prevent her being helpful where she was needed. God, she was sure, had not meant it for that. She lived at the door of the House of the Lord, and therefore, at this sudden alarm, she did not need a long pilgrimage by an untrodden path to reach the sanctuary. A moment to lay down the burden and enter the open door, and lift up the heart there within; and then to the duty in hand. She remained, therefore, with Gammer Grindle until they had laid the poor faithful lad in his shroud; then she gave all the needful orders for the burial, so that it was not till dusk she was seated in her own cottage, with leisure to plan how she should carry out what, from the moment she had first glanced at her husband's letter, she had determined to do. Half an hour sufficed her for thinking, or "taking counsel," as she called it; half an hour more for making preparations and coming across to us at Netherby, with her mind made up and all her arrangements settled. Arrived in the Hall, she handed Job's letter to Aunt Dorothy.