g so late?" said the priest, and stood still in front
of him.

"Ah, yes! it is late," said Thord, and took a seat.

The priest sat down also, as though waiting. A long, long silence
followed. At last Thord said:--

"I have something with me that I should like to give to the poor; I want
it to be invested as a legacy in my son's name."

He rose, laid some money on the table, and sat down again. The priest
counted it.

"It is a great deal of money," said he.

"It is half the price of my gard. I sold it to-day."

The priest sat long in silence. At last he asked, but gently:

"What do you propose to do now, Thord?"

"Something better."

They sat there for awhile, Thord with downcast eyes, the priest with his
eyes fixed on Thord. Presently the priest said, slowly and softly:--

"I think your son has at last brought you a true blessing."

"Yes, I think so myself," said Thord, looking up, while two big tears
coursed slowly down his cheeks.

WILLIAM BLACK

(1841-)

In view of Mr. Black's accurate and picturesque descriptions of natural
phenomena, it is interesting to know that of his varied youthful
studies, botany most attracted him, and that he followed it up as an art
pupil in the government schools. But his bent was rather for journalism
than for art or science. Before he was twenty-one he had written
critical essays for a local newspaper on Ruskin, Carlyle, and Kingsley;
and shortly afterward he wrote a series of sketches, after Christopher
North, that at this early age gave evidence of his peculiar talent, the
artistic use of natural effects in the development of character, the
pathos of the gray morning or the melancholy of the evening mist when
woven in with tender episode or tragic occurrence.

[Illustration: William Black]

William Black was born in Glasgow, Scotland, November 6th, 1841, and
received his early education there. He settled in London in 1864, and
was a special correspondent of the Morning Star in the Franco-Prussian
war, but after about ten years of the life of a newspaper man, during
which he was an editor of the London News, he abandoned journalism for
novel-writing in 1875. In the intervals of his work he traveled much,
and devoted himself with enthusiasm to out-door sports, of which he
writes with a knowledge that inspires a certain confidence in the
reader. A Scotch skipper once told him he need never starve, because he
could make a living as pilot in the western Highla