A woman who is the head of her department in a large high school told me this story.

I have a friend who hired on as a special night nurse for a dying patient in Bryan Hospital. Each night she would go down and care for Emma Eggleston. The hospital staff set up a desk for her in the patient's room so she could keep records, write letters and so on during the long hours of the night.

One night she finished tending to Emma in her oxygen tent and settled back down to her desk. She turned to finish a letter to her daughter when suddenly at the door appeared a distinguished-looking gentleman. He had wavy white hair, a cut-a-way coat with turn-back collar and striped trousers. He walked in swiftly as if he had every intention of walking past her to the patient.

She stood up to stop him but as he brushed past her he said simply, "I've come to get my baby."

As she raced out of the room to go get help, she saw him bending over the oxygen tent. Two nurses came back with her immediately from the nursing station, yet they found no one in the room!

She said, "He couldn't have left. We would have seen him come out."

But, when they looked at Emma they found that she had died, died with a lovely peaceful smile on her face.

The next day when the Eggleston family gathered to make funeral arrangements and settle up with their nurses, they asked about Emma's last moments.

When she told of night nursing and the strange visitor, an elderly lady in the group smiled and nodded.

"Yes," the old woman said, "that was our father. He always dressed with striped trousers and cut-a-way coat. He had such lovely dark wavy hair when he

was younger. But it all turned white. My older sister Emma was special to him because she was first. He would never call me that, but he always called her "My Baby."