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The long day at length came to an end Haldane of necessity had been ; and yet he knew that with the shadow of night, though so grateful after the glare and heat to which he had been subjected, the fatal pestilence approached the nearer, as if to strike a deadlier blow As the pioneer forefathers of the city had shut their doors and s at nightfall, lest their savage and lurking foes should send a fatal arrow froain, with the close of the day, all doors and s ainst a more subtle and remorseless enemy, whose viewless shafts sped with a surer ai her heart in a long letter to her cousin Laura, in which in her own vivid way she portrayed the part Haldane had acted toward them She had also written to her distant and unconscious lover, and feeling that it ht be the last time, she had poured out to him a passion that was as intense and yet as pure as the transparent fla fro over our winter fire

"Come and sit with us, and as one of us," she had said to Haldane, and so they had all gathered at the bedside of the ho had scarcely strength to do more than fix her dark, wistful eyes on one and another of the group She was so bewildered and overwhelmed with her loss that her mind had partially suspended its action She saw and heard everything; she reht of the blow had so stunned her that she was ony of full consciousness

Little Bertha climbed upon Haldane's lap and pleaded for a story

"Yes, Bertie," he said, "and I think I know a story that you would like You reone aith Jesus; would you not like to hear a story about this good friend of your papa's?"

"Yes, yes, I would Do you know ood deal, for he's my friend too I know one true story about him that I often like to think of Listen, and I will tell it to you Jesus is the God who made us, and he lives 'way up above the sky' But he not only made us, Bertie, but he also loves us, and in order to show us how he loves us he is always coood; and once he caht all be sure that he cared for us and wanted to ood and happy Well, at that time when he lived here in this world as a man he had some true friends who loved hi on the shore of a sea, and one evening Jesus told his friends to take a little boat and go over to the other side of the sea, and he would meet them there Then Jesus, anted to be alone, went up the side of the ht carow darker and darker, and at last it was so dark that the friends of Jesus that were in the boat could only see a very little way Then a an to rise, and the poor , and they pulled hard with their oars in hopes of getting over on the other side before the storm became very bad; but by the tian to blow furiously, just as you have seen it blohen the trees bent 'way over toward the ground, and so wind at sea an to beat against the boat, and before very long sohest ones would dash into it The ht, but it was of no use; the as right against theh they did their best hour after hour, they still could get no nearer the shore How sad and full of danger was their condition! the dark, dark night was above and around the by and over them, the cold, black depths of water beneath the storm What do you think became of them?"