And if anybody must save them it must be I, for I sit with her. So leave me out of the house party, please; I guess I'd better not go." Then there was a dead silence, while all the girls gazed at Agnes' flushed face. "What a funny thing to say!" cried Laura. "And the funniest part of it is that I really think she means it. I have been noticing her mild conduct toward Louise for some time." "Perhaps we might save our meat and our manners," said Beatrice. "You know we shall not get home till past nine o'clock Saturday evening, and that lovely snapdragon of an aunt of hers wouldn't think of letting Louise into the house a minute after dark." "But I will take her home with me to spend the night," said Agnes. Another astonished pause. circle and nodded. Then Laura looked around her "You see! I told you that she was in dead earnest. We must ask Louise then. We would rather take her than lose Agnes, which is a compliment, Agnes, that I hope you appreciate." No one ever quite knew how deeply Louise Barker enjoyed the surprise and delight of those two days. The feeling was very becoming, for it softened and improved her wonderfully. "We were all so affected by Agnes' saintliness," said Laura, that we treated Louise like a queen.' Indeed I doubt very much whether real queens are often so happy as she was. It did not disturb her at all, when she went home on Sunday morning, to be told by the maid that her aunt had gone away to be back on Monday. The peaceful Sunday quiet was another pleasure and good influence. The school session was drawing to a close next day when a note was brought to the teacher's desk. Louise may have been the only girl who did not watch her face as she read it, and the glance that followed the reading. Louise was a close student. School was dismissed almost at once, and Miss Howell came down to Louise's seat. "Louise, my dear," she began. "Then of course everybody listened," Laura said, when she told it at home, "for we knew that Miss Howell would not call her 'dear' unless an earthquake or something else had happened." "Louise, my dear, this note is about your aunt," said Miss Howell; "she came home ill, and when the doctor come to her, he found she had-small-pox;" Miss Howell hesitated over the word before she stumbled into it with uncompromising bluntness; then, with an evident relief, she hurried on to say, "It is a mild case. Dr. Hall hopes that she will soon be well. And she is to stay where she is, since the house is so far from any other. She sends word to you that you need not go back; you may board somewhere until the danger is over. She will get a nurse- -if she can." Louise was very pale, but uttered no exclamation, and said nothing after her first question, "Did Kate stay?" "Kate? The cook, you mean? No, she went off, without stopping to pack." Louise took no part in the question of board that was being discussed around her. She was thinking hard. re "Aunt Staples is nothing to me-nothing real. She never cared a scrap for me. She only took me because it wasn't spectable to let me go to the poor-house. I always hated disease; I'm afraid!" Presently she felt a warm, sympathizing hand laid over her cold one, as it clung tightly to the lid of the desk. At the touch Louise rose up suddenly. "Never mind talking about boarding houses," she said. "I'm going to Aunt Staples. It will be slow work finding a nurse for the small-pox, when they wouldn't get one for diphtheria a month ago. Aunt Staples has nobody but me. It is my place." Not a word was spoken as Louise walked to the door, her footsteps sounding oddly loud on the wooden floor of the school room. All the way along the street, as she hurried on with her heart beating breathlessly, she kept repeating to herself, "It is my place. It is my place. Aunt Staples has kept me and given me a home all these years, even if she was ugly about it." But it was only when her hand was on the door-knob that she confessed humbly, "And I was ugly, too. Maybe she expected something different, some one that she could like. And I disappointed her." Things turned out to be far from tragic, after all. Miss Staples was well before many days, and Louise did not take the disease. One morning, at the end of a month, she was back at school again. Here both the teachers and the girls swarmed about her, loud in admiration and hearty good fellowship. Louise found herself a fullfledged heroine. She laughed at the idea, declaring that 't was silly, preposterous! But she liked it; she liked it very much. Something else, something better yet, was in store for Louise and Miss Staples. When the cook came back and the household began to move again in its accustomed grooves, this aunt and niece found that a sweet and sacred tie was knit between them that would hold them all their lives. When she knew it, Louise said reverently, "Thank God that He did not let me run away from my place the dear, happy place that He meant for me." And if the thought of what Agnes had tried to do for her had gone far to make her brave, when her heart had almost failed, neither Louise nor Agnes realized it.-Young People's Paper. Memory Gem. "Let us go upon our mission, Help the sick and suffering poor; LESSON XVI. POWER OF THE LORD. Teacher's Reading-Life of Christ, Farrar. CALMING THE TEMPEST. Matt. 8: 23-27; Mark 4: 37-45; Luke 8: 23-25. The Sea of Galilee Jesus enters a boat-the storm-terror of disciples-their question-"Peace be still"-even wind and waves obey. (The following description should be read by the teacher and told to the children in connection with the lesson of Calming the Tempest.) "There are two lakes in Palestine, one in the northwest, the other southwest, with the river Jordan flowing between them, through a deep valley, eighty miles long. The southern sea is the Dead Sea, or Sea of Death. No living creature can exist in its salt waters. The palm-trees carried down by the floods of the Jordan are cast up again by the waves on the marshy shore, and lie strewn about it, bare and bleached, and crusted over with salt. Naked rocks close in the sea, with no verdure upon them; rarely is a bird seen to fly across it, whilst at the southern end, where there is a mountain, and pillars of rock salt, white as snow, there always hangs a veil of mist, like smoke ascending up forever and ever into the blue sky above. As the brown rapid stream of Jordan flows into it on the north, the waters will not mingle, but the salt waves foam against the fresh, sweet current of the river,as if to op pose its effort to bring some life into its desolate and barren depths. The northern lake is called the sea of Galilee. Like the Dead sea, it lies in a deep basin, surrounded by hills; but this depth gives to it so warm and fertilizing a climate, that the shores are covered with a thick jungle of shrubs, especially of the oleander, with its rose-colored blossoms. Grassy slopes here and there lead up to the feet of the mountains. The deep blue waters are sweet, clear, and transparent, and in some places the waves ebb and flow over beds of flowers, which have crept down to the very margin of the lake. Flocks of birds build among the jungle, and waterfowl skim across the surface of the lake in myriads, for the water teems with fish. All the early hours of the morning the lark sings there merrily, and throughout the live long day the moaning of the dove is heard. In former times, when the shores of the lake were crowded with villages, hundreds of boats and little ships with white sails sailed upon it, and all sorts of fruit and corn were cultivated on the western plain." STORM ON SEA OF GALILEE. Dr. Thompson says: "My experience in this region enables me to sympathize with the disciples in their contest with the wind. I spent a night in that Wady Shukaiyif, some three miles up it, to the left of us. The sun had scarcely set when the wind began to rush down towards the lake, and it continued all night long with constantly increasing violence, so that when we reached the shore next morning the face of the lake was like a boiling caldron. The wind howled down every wady from the northeast and east with such fury that no effort of the rowers could have brought a boat to shore at any part along the coast. "To understand the causes of these sudden and violent tempests, we must remember that the lake lies low-six hundred feet lower than the ocean; that the vast and naked plateaus of the Jaulan rise to a great height, spreading backward to the wilds of Hauran and upward to snowy Hermon, and the water courses have cut out profound ravines and wild gorges, converging to the head of this lake, and that these act like gigantic funnels, to draw the cold winds from the mountains. On the occasion referred to, we subsequently pitched out tents at the shore, and remained for three days and nights exposed to this tremendous wind. We had to double pin all our tent ropes, and frequently were obliged to hang with our whole weights upon them to keep the quivering tabernacle from being carried up bodily into the air. . . . The whole lake, as we had it, was lashed into fury; the waves repeatedly rolled up to our tent doors, tumbling over the ropes, with such violence as to carry away the tent pins." AN UNEXPECTED MEAL. The few remaining Saints had been driven from the beautiful city of Nauvoo, and were waiting on the west side of the river for wagons to take them to the other Saints who had previously gone west. It was very rainy weather, and many of the people were victims of the fever; they had no homes, no houses, and no friends to offer help. Fathers, mothers, children, and grandparents were suffering from fever, wanting even clothes enough to protect them from the storms. Often they wondered where the next meal was to come from; they had no way of providing. says: One of the Saints who was in the midst of this suffering "On the 9th of October several wagons with oxen having been sent by the Twelve to fetch the poor Saints away, were drawn out in a line on the river banks ready to start. But hark! what noise is that? See! the quails descend. They alight close by our little camp of twelve wagons, run past each wagon tongue, when they arise, fly around the camp three times, descend again and run the gauntlet past each wagon. See! the sick knock them down with sticks and the little children catch them alive with their hands! Some are cooked for breakfast. "While my family are seated on the wagon tongue and ground, having a washtub for table, behold they come again! One descends upon our tea-board in the midst of our cups, while we were actually around the table eating our breakfast, which a little boy eight years old catches alive in his hands. They rise again, the flocks increase in number, seldom going seven rods from camp, continually flying around the camp, sometimes under the wagons, sometimes over, and even into the wagons where the poor, sick Saints are lying in bed; thus having a direct manifestation from the Most High that although we are driven by men. He has not forsaken us, but that his eyes are continually over us for good. At noon, having caught alive about fifty and killed about fifty more, the captain gave orders not to kill any more, as it was a direct manifestation and visitation from the Lord. In the afternoon hundreds were flying at a time. When our camp started at three p. m., there could not have been less than five hundred. some said there were fifteen hundred, flying about the camp. "As welcome to this famished 'forlorn hope' were these quails as the heavenly manna to the hungry hosts of ancient Israel in the wilderness." Memory Gem. "All things are possible unto the Lord." |