"No, Maggie, not foolish, not foolish; something tells me that you have only obeyed the dictates of a good heart, guided by an invisible power. But we will not talk about it any more now. I have arranged a place for you to sleep to-night, for the house is very full, and we can scarcely find beds for those we have, and there are applications for more poor children every day. Do you remember that pretty little Italian beggar girl, Madalina, that you used to go out with sometimes? She is going to sleep in that little room, and you may sleep with her."
"Oh, mother, she is so dirty!"
"She used to be, she is not so now. She was so when she ran the streets, just like another little girl."
"Oh, mother, I know who you mean, but I did not know that she had been improved."
The next day, the father and mother and daughter were sitting side by side in the chapel, and it was the remark of more than one, "Oh, what a change!" "Is it possible that that is old drunken Reagan and his wife, that used to live in that Centre street cellar, and that that is 'Wild Maggie?' What a change! Why she is real pretty, and so bright, and so affectionate—see how she looks out the hymn for her mother; and now they all kneel together. Well well, that is better than all drunk together."
After morning service, Mrs. Reagan went into the kitchen to assist about dinner.
"I cannot tell how it is," said she, "but I feel as though this was the last meal I shall ever eat with my husband and Maggie; perhaps I shall not eat this."
She never did.
Half an hour after that, the house was in wild commotion. "Where is Mr. Reagan?—where is Maggie?—call the doctor!—oh, dear!—oh, dear! Mrs. Reagan is in a fit."
It was a fit which all must have sooner or later. Her forebodings, from whatever cause they came, had given her prescience of her death.