tle sigh.

And at once he was off in the wonder-aisles of dreamland--a dreamland
full of circuses, of impossibly funny and friendly clowns, of street
parade glories, of marvellous animals and thrilling equestrian feats.

"Sleep well," said Peter Grimm. "I wish you the very pleasantest of
dreams a boy could have in _this_ world."

[Illustration: "Sleep well," said Peter Grimm. "I wish you the very
pleasantest of dreams a boy could have in _this_ world"]

The doctor's step sounded presently in the adjoining kitchen. As though
awakened by it, Willem opened his eyes and sat up. The fever flush was
gone from his cheeks, the fever glaze from his look. The lassitude that
had weighted every joint in his sick little body had fled, to be
replaced by a strange, glorious buoyancy.

With a glad shout, Willem sprang up and raced across the floor into
Peter Grimm's outstretched arms.

"_Huge moroche_, Mynheer Grimm!" he cried. "Oh, I am _well_! I never was
so well before. It's wonderful to be like this."

"You are happy, too?"

"Oh! _Happy?_ It's like school being over!"

"Good!" laughed Peter Grimm. "It will always be like that now. Come!
Let's be off."

He lifted the exalted, eager boy lightly from the floor, and swung him
to a perch on his shoulder.

"_Uncle Rat has come to town!_" sang Willem, too rapturously happy to
keep still.

"Ha-_H'M_!" he and Peter Grimm chorused as they moved toward the door.

"'Uncle Rat has come to town,
To buy----'"

McPherson came in.

"Here's the water, Willem," he announced, going over to the couch. "I
got it at last, after barking my shins over----"

He glanced at the sofa and its occupant. Then the glass fell from his
nerveless hand. He knelt in horror beside the still, white little body
that lay there.

"Dead!" gasped McPherson.

"No!" exulted Peter Grimm from the doorway. "Not _dead_, Andrew, old
friend. There never was so fair a prospect for _life_!"

"Oh," sighed Willem blissfully, his arm about Peter Grimm's neck, "I'm
_so_ happy! I didn't know any one could be so happy as this--or so
_well_."

"If only the rest of them knew what they are missing! Hey, Willem?"
assented Peter Grimm.

"What is Dr. McPherson looking at there on the sofa?" demanded Willem.
"He seems scared--and--and--unhappy. _What_ is he looking at, Mynheer
Grimm?"

"He is looking at--_nothing_. And he doesn't know it. Come!"

"It's--it's so wonderful to be _alive_!" cried Willem.

They pass