nd peered curiously at the face. It was ghastly white, the eyes
wide open and staring, and with a shriek Jeffries alarmed the whole
establishment.

Old Dr. Lecounte came, pronounced him dead, and then sent for Dr.
Maverick, to whom he had taken a great liking. Between them both they
found a faint sign of life; and he was removed to his elegant mansion on
Hope Terrace, where his wife went into immediate and violent hysterics.
They remained several hours, and decided it to be that terrible death in
life, entire paralysis of brain, nerve, and muscle. He might linger some
days; he might drop away any moment.

Horace Eastman, looking over the news items the next morning, saw this
account, and returned at once to Yerbury. Certainly fortune had favored
him. Affairs were in wild confusion. He learned that a telegram had been
sent to young Mr. Lawrence, and an answer received. He would be back
next Monday. Mrs. Minor came up, and brought an experienced nurse.

The mill kept open until Saturday. Then Mr. Eastman called the men
together.

He was very much puzzled to know what to do, he said. He had resigned
his position as superintendent of the mills, nearly a month ago; but
Mr. Lawrence had begged him to stay on until he could come to some
decision. The affairs were in a very embarrassed condition, and now
suspension was imperative. What Mr. Lawrence would have done, he could
not tell; but he did not feel justified in taking the responsibility. He
was most truly sorry--he could say it from his heart--for those whose
cheerful faces and light steps he had watched year after year, until he
came to have a friendly feeling for them all; and he was shocked at the
result of all this trouble to his dear friend, to whom he was bound by a
deeper tie than that of mere business. But there had been two years of
unparalleled depression, and Mr. Lawrence had made a brave fight. No one
beside himself knew all the difficulties that had beset his old friend's
path. It was not only here in Yerbury that trade was dull: it was from
the Atlantic to the Pacific. England, Germany, and France were suffering
as deeply as ourselves. Production had been overdone by most of the
employers using their best efforts to keep their hands at work in the
face of a falling market, or no market at all. Shelves were packed with
goods everywhere. We were on the eve of a great change, and it would be
some time before values would become stable again. If the balance of