With the opening of cold weather the seeming betterment in Mrs.

Britton's health proved but temporary. As the winter advanced she failed

rapidly, until, unable to sit up, she lay on a low couch, wheeled from

room to room to afford all the rest and change possible. Day by day her

pallor grew more and more like the waxen petals of the lily, while the

fatal rose flush in her cheek deepened, and her eyes, unnaturally large

and lustrous, had in them the look of those who dwell in the borderland.

She realized her condition as fully as those about her, but there was

neither fear nor regret in the eyes, which, fixed on the glory invisible

to them, caught and reflected the light of the other world, till, in the

last days, those watching her saw her face "as it had been the face of

an angel."

No demonstration of sorrow marred the peace in which her soul dwelt the

last days of its stay, for the very room seemed hallowed, a place too

sacred for the intrusion of any personal grief.

Turning one day to her husband, who seldom left her side, she said,-"My sorrow made me selfish; I see it now. Look at the good you have

done, the many you have helped; what have I done, what have I to show

for all these years?"

Just then Darrell passed the window before which she was lying.

"There is your work, Patience," Mr. Britton replied, tenderly; "you have

that to show for those years of loneliness and suffering. Surely, love,

you have done noble work there; work whose results will last for

years--probably for generations--yet to come!"

Her face lighted with a rapturous smile. "I had not thought of that,"

she whispered; "I will not go empty-handed after all. Perhaps He will

say of me, as of one of old, 'She hath done what she could.'"

From that time she sank rapidly, sleeping lightly, waking occasionally

with a child-like smile, then lapsing again into unconsciousness.

One evening as the day was fading she awoke from a long sleep and looked

intently into the faces gathered about her. Her pastor, who had known

her through all the years of her sorrow, was beside her. Bending over

her and looking into the eyes now dimmed by the approaching shadows, he

said,-"You have not much longer to wait, my dear sister."

With a significant gesture she pointed to the fading light.

"'Until the day break,'" she murmured, with difficulty.




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