w surface had caught
life from the half-dead ashes, and had blazed up brightly, and the
warmth was penetrating gratefully through him. The old clergyman
smiled, and held his thin hands to the flame as he gazed into the fire,
but the wonder and awe of his dream were in his eyes.

"My beautiful white birds!" he said, aloud, but softly. "Mine! They were
out of sight, but they were there all the time. Surely the dream was
sent from Heaven--surely the Lord means me to believe that my life has
been of service after all." And as he still gazed, with rapt face, into
his study fire, he whispered: "Angels came and ministered unto him."

THE DIAMOND BROOCHES

The room was filled with signs of breeding and cultivation; it was
bare of the things which mean money. Books were everywhere; family
portraits, gone brown with time, hung on the walls; a tall silver
candlestick gleamed from a corner; there was the tarnished gold of
carved Florentine frames, such as people bring still from Italy. But
the furniture-covering was faded, the carpet had been turned, the
place itself was the small parlor of a cheap apartment, and the
wall-paper was atrocious. The least thoughtful, listening for a moment
to that language which a room speaks of those who live in it, would
have known this at once as the home of well-bred people who were very
poor.

So quiet it was that it seemed empty. If an observer had stood in the
doorway, it might have been a minute before he saw that a man sat in
front of the fireless hearth with his arms stretched before him on the
table and his head fallen into them. For many minutes there was no
sound, no stir of the man's nerveless pose; it might have been that he
was asleep. Suddenly the characterless silence of the place was flooded
with tragedy, for the man groaned, and a child would have known that the
sound came from a torn soul. He lifted his face--a handsome, high-bred
face, clever, a bit weak,--and tears were wet on his cheeks. He glanced
about as if fearing to be seen as he wiped them away, and at the moment
there was a light bustle, low voices down the hall. The young man sprang
to his feet and stood alert as a step came toward him. He caught a sharp
breath as another man, iron-gray, professional, stood in the doorway.

"Doctor! You have made the examination--you think--" he flung at the
newcomer, and the other answered with the cool incisive manner of one
whose words weigh.

"Mr. Newbold," he said, "