lian, marking his tally-board
with a piece of chalk.

Richling clapped him joyfully on the shoulder, but turned around with
inward distress and hurried away. He had not found work.

Events followed of which we have already taken knowledge. Mary, we have
seen, fell sick and was taken to the hospital.

"I shall go mad!" Richling would moan, with his dishevelled brows
between his hands, and then start to his feet, exclaiming, "I must not!
I must not! I must keep my senses!" And so to the commercial regions or
to the hospital.

Dr. Sevier, as we know, left word that Richling should call and see him;
but when he called, a servant--very curtly, it seemed to him--said the
Doctor was not well and didn't want to see anybody. This was enough for
a young man who _hadn't_ his senses. The more he needed a helping hand
the more unreasonably shy he became of those who might help him.

"Will nobody come and find us?" Yet he would not cry "Whoop!" and how,
then, was anybody to come?

Mary returned to the house again (ah! what joys there are in the vale of
tribulation!), and grew strong,--stronger, she averred, than ever she
had been.

"And now you'll _not_ be cast down, _will_ you?" she said, sliding into
her husband's lap. She was in an uncommonly playful mood.

"Not a bit of it," said John. "Every dog has his day. I'll come to the
top. You'll see."

"Don't I know that?" she responded, "Look here, now," she exclaimed,
starting to her feet and facing him, "_I'll_ recommend you to anybody.
_I've_ got confidence in you!" Richling thought she had never looked
quite so pretty as at that moment. He leaped from his chair with a
laughing ejaculation, caught and swung her an instant from her feet, and
landed her again before she could cry out. If, in retort, she smote him
so sturdily that she had to retreat backward to rearrange her shaken
coil of hair, it need not go down on the record; such things will
happen. The scuffle and suppressed laughter were detected even in Mrs.
Riley's room.

"Ah!" sighed the widow to herself, "wasn't it Kate Riley that used to
get the sweet, haird knocks!" Her grief was mellowing.

Richling went out on the old search, which the advancing summer made
more nearly futile each day than the day before.

Stop. What sound was that?

"Richling! Richling!"

Richling, walking in a commercial street, turned. A member of the firm
that had last employed him beckoned him to halt.

"What are you doing now, Ri