"Rotha, my child, can you gather up your courage and be quiet and be brave now?"
She hesitated, and then in a smothered voice said, "I'm not brave."
"I think you can be."
"I wish—I could die," she said slowly.
"But what we have to do, is to live and act for others. Yes, it would often seem a great deal easier to die; but we have something to do in the world. You have something to do. Your mother's comfort, and even the prolonging of her stay with us, may depend on your quietness and self- command. For love of her, can you be strong and do it?"
"I am not strong—" said Rotha, as she had spoken before.
"Love makes people strong. And Jesus will help the weak, if they trust him, to do anything they have to do."
"You know I am not a Christian," Rotha answered in the same matter-of- fact way.
"Suppose you do not let that be true after to-day."
There was another silence.