`` I have n't much to say -- only this . After mother died I took typhoid fever . Here I was with no one to wait on me . Robert came and nursed me . He was the most faithful , tender , gentle nurse ever a man had . The doctor said Robert saved my life . I do n't suppose any of the rest of us here can say we have saved a life . '' Edith wiped away her tears and sprang up impulsively . `` Years ago , '' she said , `` there was a poor , ambitious girl who had a voice . She wanted a musical education and her only apparent chance of obtaining it was to get a teacher 's certificate and earn money enough to have her voice trained . She studied hard , but her brains , in mathematics at least , were n't as good as her voice , and the time was short . She failed . She was lost in disappointment and despair , for that was the last year in which it was possible to obtain a teacher 's certificate without attending Queen 's Academy , and she could not afford that . Then her oldest brother came to her and told her he could spare enough money to send her to the conservatory of music in Halifax for a year . He made her take it . She never knew till long afterwards that he had sold the beautiful horse which he loved like a human creature , to get the money . She went to the Halifax conservatory . She won a musical scholarship . She has had a happy life and a successful career . And she owes it all to her brother Robert -- '' But Edith could go no further .
Her voice failed her and she sat down XXXXX tears .
After for in like of that till to with without