The gates ajar. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.

The Gates Ajar. 231
where a faint, gray light struggled in, and
opened the bosom of her dress....
There was silence between us for a long
while after that; she went back to the sofa,
and I took her hand and bowed my face over
it, and so we sat.
The leaves rustled out of doors. Faith, up
stairs, was singing herself to sleep with a
droning sound.
"He talked of risking an operation," she
said, at length, "but decided to-day that it
was quite useless. I suppose I must give up
and be sick now; I am feeling the reaction from
having kept up so long. He thinks I shall
not suffer a very great deal. He thinks he
can relieve me, and that it may be soon over."
"There is no chance?"
"No chance."
I took both of her hands, and cried out, I
believe, as I did that first night when she
spoke to me of Roy, -" Auntie, Auntie, Auntie!" and tried to think what I was doing, but
only cried out the more.
"Why, Mary! " she said, — "why, Mary!"
and again, as before, she passed her soft hand
to and fro across my hair, till by and by I began to think, as I had thought before, that I