for him in such a way that he would not be obliged to
tell a falsehood.

"An' thank yer old woman for me," said Jim, "an' tell her she's the
queen of the huckleberry bushes, an' a jewel to the side o' the road she
lives on."

"Divil a bit will I do it," responded Mike. "She'll be so grand I can't
live wid her."

"An' tell her when ye've had yer quarrel," said Jim, "that there'll
allers be a place for her in Number Ten."

They chaffed one another until Mike passed out of sight among the trees;
and Jim, notwithstanding his new society, felt lonelier, as he turned
back to his cabin, than he had ever felt when there was no human being
within twenty miles of him.

The sun of early May had begun to shine brightly, the willows were
growing green by the side of the river, the resinous buds were swelling
daily, and making ready to burst into foliage, the birds returned one
after another from their winter journeyings, and the thrushes filled the
mornings and the evenings alike with their carolings. Spring had come to
the woods again, with words of promise and wings of fulfillment, and
Jim's heart was full of tender gladness. He had gratified his benevolent
impulses, and he found upon his hands that which would tax their
abounding energies. Life had never seemed to him so full of significance
as it did then. He could see what he had been saving money for, and he
felt that out of the service he was rendering to the poor and the
distressed was growing a love for them that gave a new and almost divine
flavor to his existence.

Benedict mended slowly, but he mended daily, and gave promise of the
permanent recovery of a healthy body and a sound mind. It was a happy
day for Jim when, with Harry and the dog bounding before him, and
Benedict leaning on his arm, he walked over to his old cabin, and all
ate together at his own rude table. Jim never encouraged his friend's
questions. He endeavored, by every practical way, to restrain his mind
from wandering into the past, and encouraged him to associate his future
with his present society and surroundings. The stronger the patient
grew, the more willing he became to shut out the past, which, as memory
sometimes--nay, too often--recalled it, was an unbroken history of
trial, disappointment, grief, despair, and dreams of great darkness.

There was one man whom he could never think of without a shudder, and
with that man his possible outside life was inseparably associated. Mr.
Belcher