a little education. Just wait! Before you've done with her, Anne will vindicate the servant soul you say she hasn't got."

CHAPTER II.

During the ten years that followed when the Farringdons came back to their summer haunts near Lyttelton-Leas, the Vicar's wife used sometimes to recall to the Vicar's sister their first encounter about Anne Carter. And never without triumphant commentary on the intervening years. Anne was literally unchanged. Having, at about fifty, reached the limit of the refining and etherealising possibilities of advancing age, she stopped short and never thereafter grew a day older. Not so her employers. The Vicar's health failed, and failed so conspicuously at the end of that quiet decade, that he was induced to give up the chapel-of-ease at Lyttelton-Marley. No one noticed that, about the same time, he gave up preaching privately against the vulgar and most unsound notion that manual labour and domestic service had in them anything of degradation. And he had less to say about the fine object-lesson of Anne Carter's proud and simple life.

The summer that year had been cold and rainy. There was a good deal of sickness about. One dripping afternoon in July, Anne protested against Mrs. Keston's going the usual Friday round among the parish poor. While the Vicar's wife was saying feebly "No-no," she wouldn't "get into the habit of staying in for the weather," Anne had put on her plain and stately garments, and was on her way with Mrs. Keston's soups and jellies to their well-known destinations.

It was not the first time, nor yet the second, that she had undertaken this office in inclement weather. But that evening she came back with a cough and a chill. The next morning she dragged through her work looking like a ghost, and the next afternoon she retired to her own room, unlocked a rarely-opened drawer, took out certain articles of linen, laid them across the foot-board, undressed, and betook herself to bed. Anne Carter was very ill.

There was consternation in the Vicar's household. Everybody there had been ill some time in that ten years, except Anne. She had nursed them all, and half the village as well, and now this rock of steadfast endurance, this pillar of the house and parish, was stricken. down.

The doctor thought the gravity of the case should be made known to the woman's family.

"I'm glad this is Sunday," said Mrs. Keston the next day, standing at the foot of Anne's bed. "Your sons will be here this afternoon, I suppose?"

"I'm sorry for that. Don't you think of course this may be nothing but a cold——————?”

"Nothing but?" The woman closed her eyes an instant, as if to keep to herself any expression of suffering they might betray. "This," she went on, opening them again with recovered serenity, "this is nothing but pleurisy."

"Has the doctor told you so?" asked Mrs. Keston.

"No."

"O, of course you know the symptoms. I ought to be the last to forget you have nursed me through two attacks since you've been with Still"

us.

Anne locked through Mrs. Keston into space.

"I shan't have two attacks," she said, without expression.

"Are you alarmed about yourself?" Mrs. Keston's voice faltered a little.

"No," said the woman rigidly.

"Still, I think your sons ought to come and see you. They oughtn't to be so far away as Didsbury."

"I've sent for them."

"Ah, I'm glad! When will they come?"

"In time-in time."

"The doctor's manner has frightened you "-Mrs. Keston felt the tears rising" but you mustn't give up hope, you know."

"I have something better than hope."

"Better?"

"I know—that my Redeemer liveth."

This, from the point of view of physical health, was vague.

"Does she actually realise that she can't get well?" thought the Vicar's wife, looking at the immobile face and steady eyes. As she moved away from the bed, with that sense of baffled kindness that Anne so often gave her, Mrs. Keston knocked down the clean linen that hung over the foot-board.

"Never mind," said Anne, weakly, as the Vicar's wife stooped to pick up the things.

"If these are airing," said the lady, "they'd better be by the fire." "They won't need airing," observed Anne impassively.

As Mrs. Keston took hold of a great piece of linen, it slipped out of its folds and fell voluminously along the floor. The Vicar's wife looked across its snowy whiteness to the white face of the woman.

"What do you use this for?”

"I haven't used it yet," said Anne. There was a pause. "You don't mean

began Mrs. Keston.

"Yes—the old way is the best. Fashions change so," said Anne

Carter.

Mrs. Keston folded up the winding sheet with a chill creeping down her spine.

"Yes," she said stupidly, just to break the grave-like stillness with a human sound-" a-yes."

"Yes," echoed Anne with her steadfast eyes on the linen-"I'm sure it will be more in keeping."

Mrs. Keston had assisted at many a death-bed, yet she went downstairs a good deal shaken. She was conscious, too, that her emotion was not all due to her very real sorrow at the prospect of losing Anne. Under the unusual stress of feeling, she found courage to penetrate to her husband's sanctum, where not even she, as a rule, dared follow him. But she explained: Anne Carter was dying and knew she was dying. He must go and administer spiritual consolation.

The Vicar put down his quill and pushed back his pile of sermon paper with marked reluctance.

"Dear," said his wife nervously, "do make haste. She takes it in a strange, terrible way."

"Ah, hysterical?"

"No-no. Only so quiet-so

"Ah, numbed?"

"No. Dreadfully conscious of everything and-O, I don't know, do go and comfort her."

"Comfort her "-the Vicar repeated to himself as he slowly mounted the stair-" Comfort." Any one who knew him would have thought him singularly ill at ease, but he knocked at the door and went in. The little maidservant, who was sitting by the bed, got up and came out. The Vicar took her chair.

"I hope you are not suffering much."

Anne tightened her pale lips an almost imperceptible instant.

"Thank you," she said.

"Is there anything we can do for you besides-"

"No, thank you," she interrupted, in a weak voice.

"I mustn't let you talk," he said. Suppose we read a little." He pulled a small prayer-book out of his pocket.

"No," she repeated, “no, thank you.”

The Vicar looked at her in some perplexity. "Are you feeling worse? Shall I ring?"

"The bells in this room can't be rung here." She looked up sternly at the row of dangling tyrants. "But I've taken some of my own medicine," she went on. "I'm easier."

"Then wouldn't you like me to—a

prayer-book.

"No!"

He stared at her over the open page.

"

He lifted up the worn red

"I haven't minded coming to morning prayers when I'm well," said the woman, "but when I'm dying, I must have my own minister."

"Your own minister?" repeated the Vicar, slightly dazed.

"Yes. I didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings by mentioning it before-but I'm a Wesleyan."

"Ah! Really! H'm-Really! But even so-"

"No, I don't believe in those prayers." She looked sternly at the old red prayer-book.

"O!" said the Vicar, somewhat abashed. "Then sha'n't we send or a minister of your own faith?"

"I've done that."

"Ah! H'm! When do you expect him?"

"To-morrow noon."

"And your sons ?"

"To-morrow noon."

"I sce.

And there's nothing we can do for you meanwhile." He

got up, slipping the despised prayer-book into his coat pocket.

"Perhaps just to be on the safe side." Anne drew herself up a little on one elbow, and pulled out a long envelope from under the pillow. "If you understand such things," she said dubiously. "My eldest son does--but the train might be delayed." She dropped back on the pillow.

The Vicar unfolded the paper.

"Your will? "

"Could you read it out?" she said, in a whisper.

Certainly." The Vicar cleared his throat. "I Anne Carter being of sound mind'-this was drawn up by a lawyer?"

"My husband's was. This is a copy. Names changed, and-you'll see." She propped herself up again, and leaned over the small table at the bedside.

"Anything I can give you?" said the Vicar.

"No. If you'll just go on reading." She poured out a teaspoonful of medicine, and swallowed it impassively.

The Vicar read on. The document devised and bequeathed her, husband's little farm to her "four sons."

"You mean three, don't you?" the Vicar interrupted himself. "No, four. They will all be here to-morrow." She lay back on her pillow, and pressed her crossed hands over her chest. But if she was in pain, her face kept the secret. I must tell you," she whispered. "My husband and I worked and saved in spite of bad luck, and gave the three eldest what schooling we could. When my husband died, little David was ten. I couldn't have carried on the farm without the boys, so I let it." (She stopped and panted a moment.) But we couldn't manage little David's schooling unless I went back into serv-" her voice had sunk almost beyond hearing. "I mean," she said sharply, with sudden life, "unless I took a situation. So I came here."

"And what with the rent and my-salary, little David has got through his studies" (her face lit up), "was recommended at the Quarterly Circuit meeting, passed by the Synod" (she was radiant now), "and to-day he's preaching his trial sermon." She caught in her breath in ecstasy or pain. "His three elder brothers have gone to Didsbury to hear little David preaching the Gospel of Christ."

"David is a Wesleyan minister." The proud look faded. Her eyes filled suddenly, a strong compression whitened her patient lips. The