that day and night. He refused to leave the
bedside of his friend except for a few minutes. The farmer and his wife
were equally faithful, and did all they could for the sufferer, whose
condition seemed to show a slight improvement toward the latter part of
the afternoon. So much so indeed that all felt hope.

Jim slept at intervals, but continually muttered and flung himself about.
There were flashes of consciousness, when he would look fixedly at those
around his bed, and smile in his winning way. He thanked them for their
kindness, and hoped he would get well; but he had never felt so strange.
It seemed as if his head was continually lifting his body upward, and he
was so light he could fly.

After lying this way for some minutes, his hand, which rested in that of
Tom's, would suddenly tighten with incredible strength, and he would rise
in bed and begin a wild, incoherent rambling, which filled the hearts of
the others with anguish.

It was just growing dusk, when Jim, who had exchanged a few words of sense
with his weeping friend, said, lying motionless on his pillow, and without
apparent excitement,--

"Tom, I'm dying."

"O Jim! don't say that," sobbed the broken-hearted lad. "You must get
well. You are young and strong; you must throw off this sickness: keep up
a good heart."

The poor boy shook his head.

"It's no use. I wish I had been a better boy; but I've said my prayers
night and morning, and tried to do as mother and father used to tell me to
do. Tom, try to be better; I tell you, you won't be sorry when you come to
die."

"No one could have been better than you, Jim," said the elder, feeling
more calmness than he had yet shown. He realized he was bending in the
awful shadow of death, and that but a few more words could pass between
him find the one he loved so well.

"I haven't been half as good as I ought to--not half as good as you, Tom."

"O Jim! you should not say that."

"He is right," whispered Mrs. Pitcairn, standing at the foot of the bed,
beside her husband; "he will be with us but a few minutes longer. How do
you feel," she asked gently, "now that you must soon go, Jim?"

"I am sorry to leave you and Tom, but it's all right. I see mother and
Maggie and father," he replied, looking toward the ceiling; "they are
bending over me, they are waiting to take my hand; I am glad to be with
them--Tom, kiss me good-by."

With the tears blinding his eyes, and holding the hot hand within his o