ty--two facts so marvelous and dreamlike
that he naturally closed his eyes again lest he should waken to a world
of suffering and dyspnoea. Satisfied at last that this relief was real,
he again opened his eyes, but upon surroundings so strange, so wildly
absurd and improbable, that he again doubted their reality. He was
lying in a moderately large room, primly and severely furnished, but
his attention was for the moment riveted to a gilt frame upon the wall
beside him bearing the text, "God Bless Our Home," and then on another
frame on the opposite wall which admonished him to "Watch and Pray."
Beside them hung an engraving of the "Raising of Lazarus," and a
Hogarthian lithograph of "The Drunkard's Progress." Mr. Hamlin closed
his eyes; he was dreaming certainly--not one of those wild, fantastic
visions that had so miserably filled the past long nights of pain and
suffering, but still a dream! At last, opening one eye stealthily, he
caught the flash of the sunlight upon the crystal and silver articles
of his dressing case, and that flash at once illuminated his memory. He
remembered his long weeks of illness and the devotion of Dr. Duchesne.
He remembered how, when the crisis was past, the doctor had urged a
complete change and absolute rest, and had told him of a secluded rancho
in some remote locality kept by an honest Western pioneer whose family
he had attended. He remembered his own reluctant assent, impelled by
gratitude to the doctor and the helplessness of a sick man. He
now recalled the weary journey thither, his exhaustion and the
semi-consciousness of his arrival in a bewildering wind on a shadowy
hilltop. And this was the place!

He shivered slightly, and ducked his head under the cover again. But the
brightness of the sun and some exhilarating quality in the air tempted
him to have another outlook, avoiding as far as possible the grimly
decorated walls. If they had only left him his faithful servant he
could have relieved himself of that mischievous badinage which always
alternately horrified and delighted that devoted negro. But he was
alone--absolutely alone--in this conventicle!

Presently he saw the door open slowly. It gave admission to the small
round face and yellow ringlets of a little girl, and finally to her
whole figure, clasping a doll nearly as large as herself. For a moment
she stood there, arrested by the display of Mr. Hamlin's dressing case
on the table. Then her glances moved around the r