“Aunt Elsie, that day when I was the worst, did you think I was going to die?”
It was a very unexpected question; up to that time she had not spoken of her illness except in the most general terms, and by common consent the family had avoided any reference to those dreadful days when her life seemed slipping away. Her aunt hesitated a moment uncertain just how she should reply, but at last said frankly:
“No, dearie, I didn’t.”
“Why not? Every one else did. They thought I did not understand, but I did; I knew all about it. I heard the doctor tell father, out there in the hall, that I couldn’t live until morning.”
“I know, dear; and at first I feared so, too; but the feeling passed, and I looked to see you better in the morning.”
“And I was; Aunt Elsie, I wish I knew why you looked for it, when all the rest—didn’t.” There was the half-fretful insistence of the still irresponsible invalid in her tone, and her aunt reached a swift conclusion as to what would be best for her.
“If you won’t toss about and keep the covers flying,” she said cheerily, “I’ll try to explain the way I felt. You have known of answers to prayer, haven’t you? I had one that night. I had been praying for you for, oh, a long time; I had a definite hope—I might almost say plan—for your future, and your going away so early would have overturned it all; so I asked the Great Physician to take your case into his own hands, as he did so often when he was on earth, you know. I prayed that prayer about all the time during those three days; always, of course, meaning that if it was not his way I didn’t want it; but I asked him to make it plain to me if I was not to pray for that any more; and so, that night when you were at the worst he told me.”
“Told you what? I don’t understand; you don’t mean he said real words to you, and you heard him? Of course you don’t! I don’t understand it at all!”
“Jean, dear, do you sometimes pray?”
“No,” she said, irritably. “I say words of course; I say ‘Our Father’ sometimes, and I used to say, ‘Now I lay me’—But I never felt as though any of it amounted to anything, or was really heard.”