When Helen and Amanda began to droop, as Emma now did, Dora was the oldest servant in Mrs. Lindsay's family, and highly esteemed, both on account of her fidelity and her pleasing manners. "There is something peculiar about Dora," Mrs. Lindsay would say, "she is never untruthful and never impolite; two ideas which, in the eyes of fashionable etiquette, seem antagonistic. It was not, however, until her daughters began to show symptoms of decline, that Mrs. Lindsay understood this peculiarity in Dora.
"You must turn that religious woman out of your house," said the physician, "or I cannot save your daughters." And Dora was severely reprimanded by her mistress for the extreme discourtesy of offering to read to the young ladies from the Bible.
"What can she think?" asked Helen, with concern. "The doctor says that I shall be well in a few days; but Dora looks serious, and offers to read to me from the Bible. You will not have me deceived, mamma?"
"No, love," said her mother, trying to persuade her own heart that there was no cause for alarm. "Dora is religious, and such people always have fits of being disobliging."
"She is extremely kind to me in everything else," said the poor girl; "it is only in this thing that she makes me unhappy."
"She shall make you unhappy no more; I will forbid her to approach your room." And so she did. Dora was accused of impertinence, and felt most keenly that truth and the world's etiquette were at war.
Days passed on, and there were serious faces, more than one, in that house where it was impertinent to speak of death and eternity. It is true, that for a time gay visitors were admitted to Helen's chamber, and there was hollow laughter there, as they talked of balls, parties, and new fashions, and told the poor girl that she was looking better every day: but Dora saw them whisper, and shake their heads to each other as they passed out; and she saw that every day the mother grew more fearful as it regarded the daughter, and kinder toward herself.
At last she was told that Helen wanted her; but she was charged to be careful, as the poor girl was extremely weak.
"Dora, Dora," said Helen, "you will tell me the truth. Mother said that I should not be deceived; but I have been, O, I have been cruelly deceived."
Dora talked soothingly of Him who is the resurrection and the life: but the poor girl had opened her eyes all too suddenly upon the startling picture of death; and now shrinking from his cold embrace, she could not hear of hope and comfort. Her dying words were to the mother fraught with keenest anguish, for she spoke of this cruel deceit unto the last. Amanda soon followed her young sister to the tomb; but the mother was spared the self-accusation and bitter sorrow attendant upon Helen's death. Early in her sickness Amanda was consigned to the care of Dora. It was in vain that the physician expostulated; Mrs. Lindsay feared nothing so much as again to hear words of reproof from a dying child for having deceived her. Dora kept her post with Christian fidelity, and Amanda entered the dark valley and shadow of death fearing no evil.