on His Cross, and she felt that she understood Him. She had often been rather puzzled about Him, since she herself was fearful of pain—when she barked her shins on the gravel in the garden, it was not always easy to keep back her tears—and yet Jesus had chosen to bear pain for sinners, when He might have called up all those angels! Oh, yes, she had wondered a great deal about Him, but now she no longer wondered.
At bedtime, when her mother came to hear her say her prayers—as custom demanded—Stephen’s prayers lacked conviction. But when Anna kissed her and had turned out the light, then it was that Stephen prayed in good earnest—with such fervour, indeed, that she dripped perspiration in a veritable orgy of prayer.
'Please, Jesus, give me a housemaid's knee instead of Collins—do, do, Lord Jesus. Please Jesus, I would like to bear all Collins' pain the way You did, and I don't want any angels! I would like to wash Collins in my blood. Lord Jesus—I would like very much to be a Saviour to Collins—I love her, and I want to be hurt like You were; please, dear Lord Jesus, do let me. Please give me a knee that’s all full of water, so that I can have Collins' operation. I want to have it instead of her, 'cause she's frightened—I'm not a bit frightened!'
This petition she repeated until she fell asleep, to dream that in some queer way she was Jesus, and that Collins was kneeling and kissing her hand, because she, Stephen, had managed to cure her by cutting off her knee with a bone paper-knife and grafting it on to her own. The dream was a mixture of rapture and discomfort, and it stayed quite a long time with Stephen.
The next morning she awoke with the feeling of elation that comes only in moments of perfect faith. But a dose examination of her knees in the bath revealed them to be flawless except for old scars and a crisp, brown scab from a recent tumble—this, of course, was very disappointing. She picked off the scab, and that hurt her a little, but not, she felt sure, like a real housemaid’s knee. However, she decided to continue in prayer, and not to be too easily downhearted.
For more than three weeks she sweated and prayed, and pestered poor Collins with endless daily questions: 'Is your knee better yet?' 'Don’t you think my knee's swollen?' 'Have you faith? 'Cause I have—' 'Does it hurt you less, Collins?'
But Collins would always reply in the same way: 'It's no better, thank you, Miss Stephen.'
At the end of the fourth week, Stephen suddenly stopped praying,
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