Page:The Poor Rich Man, and the Rich Poor Man.djvu/177

Rh "Hush! Susan, she is waking!" and poor Paulina awoke from a troubled dream, coughing and gasping. "Oh!" said she, as soon as she could speak, "I thought I was dead and in misery, but I am still living; and, Lottie, does not the Bible say—I have almost forgotten all I knew about the Bible—but does it not say there is hope for the living?"

"Yes, Paulina; if they repent of their evil deeds, and turn to the Lord, there is with him plenteous redemption."

"Does it say so?"—a suffocating fit of coughing interrupted her. "My mind," she continued, when she could get her breath, "My mind is so confused, I have so given up my thoughts to folly and sin, that I can't even think good thoughts; how can I repent?—I am so sleepy—" and, as she yet spoke, the words died away on her lips, and a heavy sleep came over her, from which she started as from a nightmare.

"I have done one good thing," she said: "I was good to Juliet!"

"That should comfort you!" said Susan, seizing, as eagerly as a drowning man catches at a straw, at Paulina's single consoling recollection.

"But, Susan, I was not kind as you would have been—such as I can't be so. I did keep my evil life out of her sight; I have always paid something extra, that she might have a little room to herself."

"That was considerate, Paulina."

"Do you think so, Lottie? Dear me! if I had only realized how soon it would come to this, I should have lived so differently! My God! but the other day we were playing together in Essex,