s startled. "Yes," she said softly, after a moment. "Yes, Mr.
Ellery, it's me. What are you doin' awake at such an hour's this?"

"Yes, I'm awake. I couldn't sleep well to-night, somehow. Too much
to think of, I imagine. But where have you been? Why weren't you at
meeting? And where--Why, it's almost morning!"

She did not answer at once. The temptation was to say nothing now, to
put off the trying scene as long as possible.

"It's morning," repeated the minister. "Are you sick? Has anything
happened?"

"Yes," she answered slowly, "somethin' has happened. Are you dressed?
Could you come down?"

He replied that he would be down in a moment. When he came he found
her standing by the table waiting for him. The look of her face in the
lamplight shocked him.

"Why, Mrs. Coffin!" he exclaimed. "What IS it? You look as if you had
been through some dreadful experience."

"Maybe I have," she replied. "Maybe I have. Experiences like that come
to us all in this life, to old folks and young, and we have to bear 'em
like men and women. That's the test we're put to, Mr. Ellery, and the
way we come through the fire proves the stuff we're made of. Sorrows and
disappointments and heartbreaks and sicknesses and death--"

She paused on the word. He interrupted her.

"Death?" he repeated. "Death? Is some one dead, some one I know? Mrs.
Coffin, what is it you are trying to tell me?"

Her heart went out to him. She held out both her hands.

"You poor boy," she cried, "I'm trying to tell you one of the hardest
things a body can tell. Yes, some one is dead, but that ain't all. Eben
Hammond, poor soul, is out of his troubles and gone."

"Eben Hammond! Captain Eben? Dead! Why, why--"

"Yes, Eben's gone. He was took down sudden and died about ten o'clock
last night. I was there and--"

"Captain Eben dead! Why, he was as well as--as--She said--Oh, I must go!
I must go at once!"

He was on his way to the door, but she held it shut.

"No," she said gravely, "you mustn't go. You mustn't go, Mr. Ellery.
That's the one thing you mustn't do."

"You don't understand. By and by I can tell you why I must be there, but
now--"

"I do understand. I understand it all. Lord help us! if I'd only
understood sooner, how much of this might have been spared. Why DIDN'T
you tell me?"

"Mrs. Coffin--"

"John--you won't mind my callin' you John. I'm old enough, pretty nigh,
to be your mother, and I've come to feel almost as if I was. John,
yo