"Do you heah that?" she asked of Hero,
when they told her what he had said. "The doctah said that if the Majah
had lain out on that cold, wet ground till mawnin', without any attention,
it surely would have killed him. I'm proud of you, Hero. I'm goin' to get
Papa Jack to write a piece about you and send it to the _Courier-Journal_.
How would you like to have yo' name come out in a big American newspapah?"

Several lonely days followed for the Little Colonel. Either her father or
mother was constantly with the Major, and sometimes both. They were
waiting for his niece to come from Zuerich and take him back with her to a
hospital where he could have better care than in the little inn in Zug.

It greatly worried the old man that he should be the cause of disarranging
their plans and delaying their journey. He urged them to go on and leave
him, but they would not consent. Sometimes the Little Colonel slipped into
the room with a bunch of Alpine roses or a cluster of edelweiss that she
had bought from some peasant. Sometimes she sat beside him for a few
minutes, but most of her time was spent with Hero, wandering up and down
beside the lake, feeding the swans or watching the little steamboats come
and go. She had forgotten her fear of the bottom dropping out of the town.

One evening, just at sunset, the Major sent for her. "I go to Zuerich in
the morning," he said, holding out his hand as she came into the room. "I
wanted to say good-bye while I have the time and strength. We expect to
leave very early to-morrow, probably before you are awake."

His couch was drawn up by the window, through which the shimmering lake
shone in the sunset like rosy mother-of-pearl. Far up the mountain sounded
the faint tinkling of goat-bells, and the clear, sweet yodelling of a
peasant, on his homeward way. At intervals, the deep tolling of the bell
of St. Oswald floated out across the water.

"When the snow falls," he said, after a long pause, "I shall be far away
from here. They tell me that at the hospital where I am going, I shall
find a cure. But I know." He pointed to an hour-glass on the table beside
him. "See! the sand has nearly run its course. The hour will soon be done.
It is so with me. I have felt it for a long time."

Lloyd looked up, startled. He went on slowly.

"I cannot take Hero with me to the hospital, so I shall leave him behind
with some one who will care for him and love him, perhaps even better than
I have done."