his grief, whenever
his thoughts wandered from the present to the future; and as he sat by
the lonely fireside, murmuring from time to time the Church prayer for
the repose of the dead, he almost involuntarily mingled with it another
prayer, expressed only in his own simple words, for the safety of the
living--for the young girl whose love was his sole earthly treasure; for
the motherless children who must now look for protection to him alone.

He had sat by the hearth a long, long time, absorbed in his thoughts,
not once looking round toward the bed, when he was startled by hearing
the sound of his grandfather's voice once more.

"Gabriel," whispered the old man, trembling and shrinking as he spoke,
"Gabriel, do you hear a dripping of water--now slow, now quick again--on
the floor at the foot of my bed?"

"I hear nothing, grandfather, but the crackling of the fire, and the
roaring of the storm outside."

"Drip, drip, drip! Faster and faster; plainer and plainer. Take the
torch, Gabriel; look down on the floor--look with all your eyes. Is the
place wet there? Is it the rain from heaven that is dropping through the
roof?"

Gabriel took the torch with trembling fingers and knelt down on the
floor to examine it closely. He started back from the place, as he saw
that it was quite dry--the torch dropped upon the hearth--he fell on his
knees before the statue of the Virgin and hid his face.

"Is the floor wet? Answer me, I command you--is the floor wet?" asked
the old man, quickly and breathlessly.

Gabriel rose, went back to the bedside, and whispered to him that no
drop of rain had fallen inside the cottage. As he spoke the words, he
saw a change pass over his grandfather's face--the sharp features
seemed to wither up on a sudden; the eager expression to grow vacant
and death-like in an instant. The voice, too, altered; it was harsh and
querulous no more; its tones became strangely soft, slow, and solemn,
when the old man spoke again.

"I hear it still," he said, "drip! drip! faster and plainer than ever.
That ghostly dropping of water is the last and the surest of the
fatal signs which have told of your father's and your brother's deaths
to-night, and I know from the place where I hear it--the foot of the
bed I lie on--that it is a warning to me of my own approaching end. I am
called where my son and my grandson have gone before me; my weary time
in this world is over at last. Don't let Perrine and the children c