"Deep silence in the heart,
For thought to do her part."
For some minutes neither of us spoke. Then Paulina began to speak in a low, soft voice, very unlike her usual high-pitched tones.
"Nan, do you remember that night before I went away?"
"I remember it well," I said.
"How frightened I was when I knew that I had scarlet fever—how I thought I should die as mamma did?"
"Yes," I murmured. As if I could forget!
"I shall never forget what you said that night and how you prayed with me," she went on. "You don't know how you helped me. I learned to pray that night, Nan."
"Oh, Pollie, dear Pollie," I said, drawing her closer to me, "I am so glad!"
She bent and kissed me ere she spoke again. "I thought of your words when I felt lonely and frightened in the days that followed. I tried to believe that the Lord Jesus was with me, and I asked Him to take me into His keeping. I was too weak and ill to think or pray much; but I rested on the thought that I was in His loving grasp. And presently all my fear went, and I was calm and peaceful as—as a girl would be who had her mother beside her."
"Oh, I am so glad!" I said once more. It seemed almost too wonderful to be true, that God should thus have used me to bring Paulina to Himself. Never had I felt more poor and mean and unworthy, yet never was I more truly thankful.