in one look at the man, that this blow with which he was smitten
had cleft his heart to its core.

This was her birthday,--hers whose name had not passed his lips for
years. Do you think he had once forgotten it since its morning? Did not
the memories it brought crowd into every moment? Did they not fill the
very prayers in which he besought a sin-hating God to avenge him of all
his enemies?

So many times the child had sat there at his feet on this day, playing
with some birthday toy,--he always managed to find her something, a doll
or a picture-book; she used to come up to thank him, pushing back her
curls, her little red lips put up for a kiss. He was very proud of
her,--he and the mother. She was all they had,--the only one. He used to
call her "God's dear blessing," softly, while his eyes grew dim; she
hardly heard him for his breaking voice.

She might have stood there and brought back all those dead birthday
nights, so did he live them over. But none could know it; for he did not
speak, and the frown knotted darkly on his forehead. Martha Ryck looked
up at last into her husband's face.

"Amos, if she _should_ ever come back!" He started, his eyes freezing.

"She won't! She--"

Would he have said "she _shall_ not?" God only knew.

"Martha, you talk nonsense! It's just like a woman. We've said enough
about this. I suppose He who's cursed us has got his own reasons for it.
We must bear it, and so must she."

He stood up, stroking his beard nervously, his eyes wandering about the
room; he did not, or he could not, look at his wife. Muff, rousing from
his slumbers, came up sleepily to be taken some notice of. She used to
love the dog,--the child; she gave him his name in a frolic one day; he
was always her playfellow; many a time they had come in and found her
asleep with Muff's black, shaggy sides for a pillow, and her little pink
arms around his neck, her face warm and bright with some happy dream.

Mr. Ryck had often thought he would sell the creature; but he never had.
If he had been a woman, he would have said he could not. Being a man, he
argued that Muff was a good watch-dog, and worth keeping.

"Always in the way, Muff!" he muttered, looking at the patient black
head rubbed against his knee. He was angry with the dog at that moment;
the next he had repented; the brute had done no wrong. He stooped and
patted him. Muff returned to his dreams content.

"Well, Martha," he said, coming up to her uneas