.

SISTERS OF MERCY.
"Father, dear father, prithee let me go!" "What, my child?
Have I not lost all but thee?
Am I to send thee forth to thy death in this terrible city, stricken by the hand of God ?" Into Gertrude's face there crept a wonderful light and brightness.
Her eyes shone with the intensity of her feeling.
"Father," she said, "it is even because I hold the city to be smitten by God that I ask thy permission to go forth to minister to the sick and stricken ones.

It seems to me as though in my heart a voice had spoken, saying, 'Go, and I will be with thee.' Father, listen, I pray thee.

I heard that voice first, methought, upon the terrible night when they came and took Frederick away.

When mother was next laid low, and as I watched beside her, and watched likewise how Dinah soothed and comforted and assuaged her anguish of mind and body, the voice in my heart grew ever louder and louder.