as the other wrote, and he
took the pencil gently from the Patriarch's hand.

"You must not look on me any longer as a stranger," he wrote. "Let us
just consider that it is all arranged--only I would strongly advise
making no mention of it until we make sure that she is alive."

"I think nothing should be said," agreed the Patriarch. "For even if you
found her she might not care to come--I have little here to offer a
young girl--few comforts--the care of a blind man who is deaf and dumb."

"We'll see about that when we find her"--Madison smiled brightly at the
Patriarch, as he wrote. "Now that's settled for the time being, isn't
it?"

The dumb lips moved and both hands reached out to Madison.

Madison took them in a firm, strong, reassuring clasp, then shook his
finger in a sort of playfully emotional embarrassment, excellently well
done, at the Patriarch--and picked up the slate again.

"It is getting late," he wrote, "and I must not tire you out. I am
afraid you will think I am far more inquisitive than I have any right to
be, but there is one more question that I would like to ask--may I?"

The Patriarch nodded his head, and laid his hand on Madison's sleeve in
a quaint, almost affectionate way.

"It is about your education. You came here sixty years ago, and you have
lived alone. You could have had but few advantages, with your handicap,
previous to that, and yet you write and use such perfect English."

"The answer is very simple," replied the Patriarch on the slate. "Until
within the last year, I have read largely. Would you care to look at my
books? They are there in the nook on the other side of the fireplace."

Madison, promptly and full of interest, rose from his chair, passed
around the fireplace, and halted before a row of shelves set in against
the wall.

"I pass," Madison admitted to himself after a moment, during which his
eyes roved over the well chosen classics. "I've heard of one or two of
these before--casually. I've an idea that if the Patriarch's got all
this inside his gray matter, it's just as well for the Flopper, for Pale
Face Harry, for Helena and yours truly that he's deaf and dumb--and will
be blind."

Madison came back to the Patriarch with beaming face, and picked up the
slate.

"I read a great deal myself," he wrote. "It is a pleasure to find _real_
books here. May I, during my stay in Needley, look upon them in a little
way as my own library?"

"You are very welcome inde