't know where to go.

"No, not wrong, my child, and I'm glad you've come. I ought to have
sent you word about him."

"My father! Oh, ma'am, do you know where he is?"

"Yes; he came here last night sick, and I took him in my carriage to a
Home for just such as he is, where he will be kindly taken care of
until he gets well."

Ethel's large brown eyes were fixed in a kind of thankful wonder on the
face of Mrs. Birtwell. She could not speak. She did not even try to put
thought or feeling into words. She only took the hand of Mrs. Birtwell,
and after touching it with her lips laid her wet cheek against it and
held it there tightly.

"Can I go and see him?" she asked, lifting her face after some moments.

"It will not be best, I think," replied Mrs. Birtwell--"that is, not
now. He was very sick when we took him there, and may not be well
enough to be seen this morning."

"Very sick! Oh, ma'am!" The face of Ethel grew white and her lips
trembled.

"Not dangerously," said Mrs. Birtwell, "but yet quite ill. I am going
now to see him; and if you will come here in a couple of hours, when I
shall return home--"

"Oh. ma'am, let me go along with you," broke in Ethel. "I won't ask to
see him if it isn't thought best, but I'll know how he is without
waiting so long."

The fear that Mr. Ridley might die in his delirium had troubled Mrs.
Birtwell all night, and it still oppressed her. She would have much
preferred to go alone and learn first the good or ill of the case, but
Ethel begged so hard to be permitted to accompany her that she could
not persist in objection.

On reaching the Home, Mrs. Birtwell found in the office the man in
whose care Mr. Ridley had been placed. Remembering what Mr. G---- had
said of this man, a fresh hope for Ethel's father sprang up in her soul
as she looked into his clear eyes and saw his firm mouth and air of
conscious poise and strength. She did not see in his manly face a
single scar from the old battle out of which he had come at last
victorious. Recognizing her, he called her by name, and not waiting for
her to ask the question that looked out of her face, said:

"It is all right with him."

A cry of joy that she could not repress broke from Ethel. It was
followed by sobbing and tears.

"Can we see him?" asked Mrs. Birtwell.

"The doctor will not think it best," replied the man. "He has had a
pretty hard night, but, the worst is over. We must keep him quiet
to-day."

"In the mor