and said she was anxious about her sins, and she had been praying all
night. The mother said: "Oh, stop praying! I don't believe in praying.
Get over all these religious notions and I'll give you a dress that
will cost $500, and you may wear it next week to that party." The
daughter took the dress, and she moved in the gay circle the gayest of
all the gay, that night; and sure enough all the religious impressions
were gone and she stopped praying. A few months after she came to die,
and in her closing moments said: "Mother, I wish you would bring me
that dress that cost $500." The mother thought it a very strange
request, but she brought it to please the dying child. "Now," said the
daughter, "mother, hang that dress on the foot of my bed," and the
dress was hung there, on the foot of the bed. Then the dying girl got
up on one elbow and looked at her mother, and then pointed to the
dress, and said: "Mother, that dress is the price of my soul." Oh,
what a momentous thing it is to be a mother!