life finished, his one literary
venture gone down with all it held, with nobody to care for him but
accidental acquaintances, moved gently to the side of the bed and looked
upon the pallid, still features of Myrtle Hazard. He strove hard against
a strange feeling that was taking hold of him, that was making his face
act rebelliously, and troubling his eyes with sudden films. He made a
brief stand against this invasion. "A weakness,--a weakness!" he said to
himself. "What does all this mean? Never such a thing for these twenty
years! Poor child! poor child!--Excuse me, madam," he said, after a
little interval, but for what offence he did not mention. A great deal
might be forgiven, even to a man as old as Byles Gridley, looking
upon such a face,--so lovely, yet so marked with the traces of recent
suffering, and even now showing by its changes that she was struggling
in some fearful dream. Her forehead contracted, she started with a
slight convulsive movement, and then her lips parted, and the cry
escaped from them,--how heart-breaking when there is none to answer
it,--"Mother!"

Gone back again through all the weary, chilling years of her girlhood to
that hardly remembered morning of her life when the cry she uttered was
answered by the light of loving eyes, the kiss of clinging lips, the
embrace of caressing arms!

"It is better to wake her," Mrs. Lindsay said; "she is having a troubled
dream. Wake up, my child, here is a friend waiting to see you."

She laid her hand very gently on Myrtle's forehead. Myrtle opened her
eyes, but they were vacant as yet.

"Are we dead?" she said. "Where am I? This is n't heaven--there are
no angels--Oh, no, no, no! don't send me to the other place--fifteen
years,--only fifteen years old--no father, no mother--nobody loved
me. Was it wicked in me to live?" Her whole theological training was
condensed in that last brief question.

The old man took her hand and looked her in the face, with a wonderful
tenderness in his squared features. "Wicked to live, my dear? No
indeed! Here! look at me, my child; don't you know your old friend Byles
Gridley?"

She was awake now. The sight of a familiar countenance brought back a
natural train of thought. But her recollection passed over everything
that had happened since Thursday morning.

"Where is the boat I was in?" she said. "I have just been in the water,
and I was dreaming that I was drowned. Oh! Mr. Gridley, is that you? Did
you pull me