rcumstances--be peculiarly
embarrassing. I felt it my duty to submit to the honorable board the
statement that you made to me yesterday of your needs, your physical
condition, and the trials which it has pleased Providence to send upon
you in your very proper effort to present your claims in person; but,
after careful, and I may say prayerful, consideration of your case--with
something too, I trust, of the large charitableness appropriate to the
season--it was decided that we would not be justified in doing anything
likely to impair the usefulness of the institution intrusted (under
Providence) to our care."

They had now passed out of the grounds; the street lamp opposite the
gate was dimly visible through the snow. Already the old man's former
track was obliterated, and he seemed uncertain as to which way he should
go. Mr. Tilbody had drawn a little away from him, but paused and turned
half toward him, apparently reluctant to forego the continuing
opportunity.

"Under the circumstances," he resumed, "the decision--"

But the old man was inaccessible to the suasion of his verbosity; he had
crossed the street into a vacant lot and was going forward, rather
deviously toward nowhere in particular--which, he having nowhere in
particular to go to, was not so reasonless a proceeding as it looked.

And that is how it happened that the next morning, when the church bells
of all Grayville were ringing with an added unction appropriate to the
day, the sturdy little son of Deacon Byram, breaking a way through the
snow to the place of worship, struck his foot against the body of Amasa
Abersush, philanthropist.

A WATCHER BY THE DEAD

I

In an upper room of an unoccupied dwelling in the part of San Francisco
known as North Beach lay the body of a man, under a sheet. The hour was
near nine in the evening; the room was dimly lighted by a single candle.
Although the weather was warm, the two windows, contrary to the custom
which gives the dead plenty of air, were closed and the blinds drawn
down. The furniture of the room consisted of but three pieces--an
arm-chair, a small reading-stand supporting the candle, and a long
kitchen table, supporting the body of the man. All these, as also the
corpse, seemed to have been recently brought in, for an observer, had
there been one, would have seen that all were free from dust, whereas
everything else in the room was pretty thickly coated with it, and there
were cobwebs in the a