THE RAVAGES OF DISEASE mena 8 
tering as before, and then flew away. Six days after Con- 
nie’s death, Madgie asked her mother to tell her “a wee 
story.” She was told a sweet story, but a few minutes later 
her mother and father bent over her wasted form as she 
heaved a few deep sighs and passed away from life. 
They laid her little pain-racked body by the side of Con- 
nie, and their father wrote of them both, “Lovely and pleas- 
ant in their lives, in death they were not divided,” and again 
they thanked God for preparing their two children to be 
with Him. 
Beside Madgie’s grave the sick and bereaved father said 
to his wife, “You will bury Ruth beside her sisters, and if 
I die, you will lay me across their feet.” 
Ruth was so emaciated that she had to be lifted on a pil- 
low, and as it was doubtful which would die first, her father, 
fearing that he might become too weak to do so later, made 
her little coffin at the same time that he made Madgie’s. 
Next morning Mrs. Gunn got a fresh drinking coconut 
for Ruth. She seized it eagerly in both her little hands, 
and drank it greedily. That night she slept soundly. From 
that time she began to recover, and in her recovery, she went 
again through all the stages of infancy. Again she learned 
to sit, to crawl, to stand, and to walk. For the third time 
in her little life she had been snatched from the grave. 
During the latter days of the children’s illness, Popoina 
assisted in the mission kitchen. But one afternoon he came 
to Mr. Gunn, saying, “I must go away, for I am sick.” The 
dreaded scourge had seized upon him. A week later he sent 
his wife, desiring that the missionary would see him before 
he died. Mr. Gunn was too ill to go, but Mrs. Gunn went 
to see him, and found him moaning in pain. “My love to 
you, Popoina,” she said; “great is your sickness. Is Jesus 
near you?” “He is with me. He is leading me by the nar- 
row way to heaven. Tell Missi that I am trusting in Jesus.” 
During his last days Popoina was much in prayer. He was 
buried beside Saloki, and as the natives laid him in his grave, 
