"Does it, dear? It has often seemed the same to me." Just then she caught sight of the star--she must not lose an opportunity--"but we must do our best to turn it into a song. We'll try together, won't we?" A squeeze of the hand was all the answer Bessie was able to give. It is strange that though we stand as units before God, the soul's progress can only be definitely marked by its relationship to others. By the way Phebe treated those who came under her influence was one test of her advance. The only objection Nanna raised to this addition to the family was the fear lest Bessie and Jones should be thrown too much together. "You must have noticed how she has ceased calling him 'Darling.'" "They are less likely to come together if they are constantly in each other's society than if they only saw each other occasionally," was all Phebe said. "I really think," remarked Nanna, "this house ought to be called a hospital for sick souls. First of all, you take this lonely soul in----" "Why, it was you who took me in," interrupted Phebe. "All lonely and forlorn," calmly continued Nanna, unheeding the interruption; "then Jones comes along, sore wounded in the battle, and now there's this poor young thing taken in with a broken wing. It's really nothing short of a hospital." "Well, then," replied Phebe, "we'll call it Love's Hospital." CHAPTER XIV AN UNFORTUNATE ENCOUNTER Jim Coates, the sick man whom Phebe Waring was called to visit, did not die; on the contrary, from the hour of her first visit he began to mend. Very often of an afternoon, when business was slack, she would go and have a talk with him, and nothing pleased him better than for her, instead of reading the Bible to him, to tell the stories out in her own words and with her own comments. No child ever drank in fairy stories more eagerly, and Phebe even discussed some infidel notions he had got hold of, overcoming many of his difficulties. If she had been told two months before that she could even attempt such things the firm answer would have been "Impossible!" After Jim had regained strength to a certain measure, came the difficult question of getting work for him. Phebe at once thought of the ganger at the railway-works, and drove over to enlist his sympathies on behalf of Jim, frankly telling him all the story. The man listened respectfully, and then said, "Yes, I'll put him on; but he'd better keep his mouth shut as to how he got here, or the men will give him a lively time, I bet. And if he keeps true blue among this crew, then he's a Briton, I can tell yer, for they're the rummiest lot I've ever had. I go to chapel myself with the missis, but I don't let on to them I do." "Do you think then, it is impossible to be a Christian and work with these men?" asked Phebe anxiously. "I don't say as much as that," answered the man, nervously grinding his heel into the soil as he spoke, "only you have to keep your religion to yourself." "Do you think that is possible?"