winter has killed me. Will you sit there?" she said to Wilfrid. "And
you, Minna, here?" pointing to a chair beside her. "I see you have
brought your embroidery. Did you invent that stitch? the design is
very pretty. For whom is it,--your father, or monsieur?" she added,
turning to Wilfrid. "Surely we ought to give him, before we part, a
remembrance of the daughters of Norway."

"Did you suffer much yesterday?" asked Wilfrid.

"It was nothing," she answered; "the suffering gladdened me; it was
necessary, to enable me to leave this life."

"Then death does not alarm you?" said Monsieur Becker, smiling, for he
did not think her ill.

"No, dear pastor; there are two ways of dying: to some, death is
victory, to others, defeat."

"Do you think that you have conquered?" asked Minna.

"I do not know," she said, "perhaps I have only taken a step in the
path."

The lustrous splendor of her brow grew dim, her eyes were veiled
beneath slow-dropping lids; a simple movement which affected the
prying guests and kept them silent. Monsieur Becker was the first to
recover courage.

"Dear child," he said, "you are truth itself, and you are ever kind. I
would ask of you to-night something other than the dainties of your