Old Giles Blewett was to come every day and attend to the stock , as well as help Eunice with the sick man ; and the long , hard fight with death began . It was a hard fight , indeed . Christopher Holland , in the clutches of the loathsome disease , was an object from which his nearest and dearest might have been pardoned for shrinking . But Eunice never faltered ; she never left her post . Sometimes she dozed in a chair by the bed , but she never lay down . Her endurance was something wonderful , her patience and tenderness almost superhuman . To and fro she went , in noiseless ministry , as the long , dreadful days wore away , with a quiet smile on her lips , and in her dark , sorrowful eyes the rapt look of a pictured saint in some dim cathedral niche . For her there was no world outside the bare room where lay the repulsive object she loved . One day the doctor looked very grave . He had grown well-hardened to pitiful scenes in his life-time ; but he shrunk from telling Eunice that her brother could not live . He had never seen such devotion as hers . It seemed brutal to tell her that it had been in vain . But Eunice had seen it for herself . She took it very calmly , the doctor thought . And she had her reward at last -- such as it was . She thought it amply sufficient . One night Christopher Holland opened his swollen eyes as she bent over him . They were alone in the old house . It was raining outside , and the drops rattled noisily on the panes . Christopher smiled at his sister with parched lips , and put out a feeble hand toward her .
`` XXXXX , '' he said faintly , `` you 've been the best sister ever a man had .
Blewett Christopher Eunice Holland day days disease fro left life-time