de. Even if his bewildered soul could
have forgotten, there was a faithful woman at his pillow who with
averted eyes would have covered that aged face which she had last
beheld in the comeliness of manhood.

At length the death-stricken old man lay quietly in the torpor of
mental and bodily exhaustion, with an imperceptible pulse and breath
that grew fainter and fainter except when a long, deep and irregular
inspiration seemed to prelude the flight of his spirit.

The minister of Westbury approached the bedside.

"Venerable Father Hooper," said he, "the moment of your release is at
hand. Are you ready for the lifting of the veil that shuts in time
from eternity?"

Father Hooper at first replied merely by a feeble motion of his head;
then--apprehensive, perhaps, that his meaning might be doubtful--he
exerted himself to speak.

"Yea," said he, in faint accents; "my soul hath a patient weariness
until that veil be lifted."

"And is it fitting," resumed the Reverend Mr. Clark, "that a man so
given to prayer, of such a blameless example, holy in deed and
thought, so far as mortal judgment may pronounce,--is it fitting that
a father in the Church should leave a shadow on his memory that may
seem to blacken a life so pure? I pray you, my venerable brother, let
not this thing be! Suffer us to be gladdened by your triumphant aspect
as you go to your reward. Before the veil of eternity be lifted let me
cast aside this black veil from your face;" and, thus speaking, the
Reverend Mr. Clark bent forward to reveal the mystery of so many
years.

But, exerting a sudden energy that made all the beholders stand
aghast, Father Hooper snatched both his hands from beneath the
bedclothes and pressed them strongly on the black veil, resolute to
struggle if the minister of Westbury would contend with a dying man.

"Never!" cried the veiled clergyman. "On earth, never!"

"Dark old man," exclaimed the affrighted minister, "with what horrible
crime upon your soul are you now passing to the judgment?"

Father Hooper's breath heaved: it rattled in his throat; but, with a
mighty effort grasping forward with his hands, he caught hold of life
and held it back till he should speak. He even raised himself in bed,
and there he sat shivering with the arms of Death around him, while
the black veil hung down, awful at that last moment in the gathered
terrors of a lifetime. And yet the faint, sad smile so often there now
seemed to glimmer from i