ent to bed and slept dreamlessly, while Herman yawned and
inwardly raged at the fix in which circumstances had placed him.

Like many another lover, days away from his sweetheart were lost days.
He wondered how she would take all the life down here. It would be good
fun to bring her down, anyway, and hear her talk. He planned such a
trip, and grew so interested in the thought he forgot his patient.

In the early dawn Wallace rallied and woke. Herman heard the rustle of
the pillow, and turned to find the sick man's eyes looking at him
fixedly, calm but puzzled. Herman's lips slowly changed into a beautiful
boyish smile, and Wallace replied by a faint parting of the lips, when
Herman said:

"Hello, old man! How do you find yourself?" His hearty humorous greeting
seemed to do the sick man good. Herman approached the bed. "Know where
you are?" Wallace slowly put out a hand, and Herman took it. "You're
coming on all right. Want some breakfast? Make it bucks?" he said, in
Chicago restaurant slang. "White wings--sunny--one up coff."

All this was good tonic for Wallace, and an hour later he sipped broth,
while Mrs. Allen and the Deacon and Herman stood watching the process
with apparently consuming interest. Mattie was still soundly sleeping.

There began delicious days of convalescence, during which he looked
peacefully out at the coming and going of the two women, each possessing
powerful appeal to him--one the motherly presence which had been denied
him for many years, the other something he had never permitted
himself--a sweetheart's daily companionship.

He lay there planning his church, and also his home. Into the thought of
a new church came shyly but persistently the thought of a fireside of
his own, with this young girl sitting in the glow of it waiting for him.
His life had held little romance in its whole length. He had earned his
own way through school and to college. His slender physical energies had
been taxed to their utmost at every stage of his climb, but now it
seemed as though some blessed rest and peace were at hand.

Meanwhile, the bitter partisans met each other coming and going out of
the gate of the Allen estate, and the goodness of God shone in their
softened faces. Herman was skeptical of its lasting quality, but was
forced to acknowledge that it was a lovely light. He it was who made the
electrical suggestion to rebuild the church as an evidence of good
faith. "You say you're regenerated--go ah