She is at work yet,--don't you see?
What is that prophecy about her?--that voice which the prophet heard,
you know, 'And I heard a voice saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the
dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that
they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.'"
How strangely the words sounded, repeated in her low, clear voice, amid
the hum of business on every side! Alfred Ried felt singularly moved. He
had been a highly strung, imaginative child. He had been his sister
Ester's almost constant companion during those last months in which she
was slowly fading out of sight. While Julia held steadily to her
mother's side, and learned to do many helpful things, he had been
stationed chief nurse in Ester's room, to see that she lacked for no
tender care during the hours when others must be away from her. And
those hours she had tenderly improved. He remembered to this day just
how she looked, with a pink flush all over her cheeks, and a bright
light in her eyes, as she talked to him of the things that she and Dr.
Douglass had meant to do for boys,--neglected, homeless, friendless
boys. Oh, the plans they had carefully thought out, to reach after these
forsaken ones! He remembered that his own cheeks had grown hot while he
listened, and the blood had seemed to race like fire through his veins
when she said, "God wants _me_ for something else, Alfred; but you
will do my work when you get to be a man; you will find helpers, and
carry it on as I wanted to do.
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