-and beyond it is
the sweep of the eternal sea.

Madison, his hair streaking just a little gray at the temples now,
removed his hat--and his face softened, saddened, as he read the simple
inscription:

THE PATRIARCH

The boy glanced at his father a little wonderingly--and then spelt out
the words. He shook his head.

"I don't know what that means," he said. "What does that word mean?"

Madison patted his head.

"You tell him, Helena," he said--and came and stood beside her.

And so Helena told the boy in simple language as much of the Patriarch's
story as she thought he could understand--and when she had finished the
boy's face was aglow.

"And!" he said breathlessly, "and--and did he ever do a really,
truly-truly miracle?"

There was silence for an instant--then a tender smile came trembling to
Helena's lips, and into the brown eyes crept the love-light, as she
reached out to Madison and her hand found his and held it very tightly.

And Madison bent and kissed her; and drew the little lad between them
and laid his hand on the boy's head, and answered for Helena.

"Yes, my son," he said; "and some day when you are a man you will
understand how great a miracle it was."

THE END

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Miracle Man, by Frank L. Packard

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MIRACLE MAN ***

***** This file should be named 15578.txt or 15578.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.net/1/5/5/7/15578/

Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Pilar Somoza and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any pur