at_!'

"He set the big white platter down on the bed, an' when she see all the
stuff,--white grapes, mind you, an' fresh tomatoes, an' a glass for the
wine,--she just grabs his hand an' holds it up to her throat, an'
says:--

"'Jack! Oh, Jack!' she says,--she called him that when she was
pleased,--'how did you? _How did you?_'

"'Never you mind,' he says, kissin' her an' lookin' as though he was
goin' to bu'st out himself, 'never you ask. It's time I had some luck,
ain't it? Like other men?'

"She was touchin' things here an' there, liftin' up the grapes an'
lookin' at 'em--poor little soul had lived on milk toast an' dates an' a
apple now an' then for two weeks to my knowledge. But when he said that,
she stopped an' looked at him, scared.

"'John!' she says, 'you ain't--'

"He laughed at that.

"'Gamblin'?' he says. 'No--never you fear.' I had thought o' that
myself, only I didn't quite see when he'd had the chance since night
before when the doctor told him. 'It's all owin' to the office,' he says
to her, 'an' now you eat--lemme see you eat, Linda,' he says, an' that
seemed to be food enough for him. He didn't half touch a thing. 'Eat all
you want,' he says, 'an', Peleg, poke up the fire. There's half a ton o'
coal comin' to-morrow. An' we're goin' to have this _every day_,' he
told her.

"Land o' love! how happy she was! She made me eat some grapes, an' she
sent a bunch to the woman on the same floor, because she'd brought her
an orange six weeks before; an' then she begs Mr. Loneway to get an
extry candle out of the top dresser draw'. An' when that was lit up she
whispers to him, and he goes out an' fetches from somewheres a guitar
with more'n half the strings left on; an' she set up an' picked away on
'em, an' we all three sung, though I can't carry a tune no more'n what I
can carry a white oak tree trunk.

"'Oh,' she says, 'I'm a-goin' to get well now. Oh,' she says, 'ain't it
heaven to be rich again?'

"No--you can say she'd ought to 'a' made him tell her where he got the
money. But she trusted him, an' she'd been a-livin' on milk toast an'
dates for so long that I can pretty well see how she took it all as
what's-his-name took the wild honey, without askin' the Lord whose make
it was. Besides, she was sick. An' milk toast an' dates'd reconcile me
to 'most any change for the better.

"It got so then that I went upstairs every noon an' fixed up her lunch
for her, an' one day she done what I'd been d