ed up at the Doctor so
steadily and searchingly that the diamond eyes of Elsie herself could
hardly have pierced more deeply.

The Doctor raised his head, by his habitual movement, and met the old
woman's look with his own calm and scrutinizing gaze, sharpened by the
glasses through which he now saw her.

Sophy spoke presently in an awed tone, as if telling a vision.

"We shall be havin' trouble before long. The' 's somethin' comin' from
the Lord. I've had dreams, Doctor. It's many a year I've been
a-dreamin', but now they're comin' over 'n' over the same thing. Three
times I've dreamed one thing, Doctor,--one thing!"

"And what was that?" the Doctor said, with that shade of curiosity in his
tone which a metaphysician would probably say is an index of a certain
tendency to belief in the superstition to which the question refers.

"I ca'n' jestly tell y' what it was, Doctor," the old woman answered, as
if bewildered and trying to clear up her recollections; "but it was
somethin' fearful, with a great noise 'n' a great cryin' o' people,--like
the Las' Day, Doctor! The Lord have mercy on my poor chil', 'n' take
care of her, if anything happens! But I's feared she'll never live to
see the Las' Day, 'f 't don' come pooty quick."

Poor Sophy, only the third generation from cannibalism, was, not
unnaturally, somewhat confused in her theological notions. Some of the
Second-Advent preachers had been about, and circulated their predictions
among the kitchen--population of Rockland. This was the way in which it
happened that she mingled her fears in such a strange manner with their
doctrines.

The Doctor answered solemnly, that of the day and hour we knew not, but
it became us to be always ready.--"Is there anything going on in the
household different from common?"

Old Sophy's wrinkled face looked as full of life and intelligence, when
she turned it full upon the Doctor, as if she had slipped off her
infirmities and years like an outer garment. All those fine instincts of
observation which came straight to her from her savage grandfather looked
out of her little eyes. She had a kind of faith that the Doctor was a
mighty conjurer, who, if he would, could bewitch any of them. She had
relieved her feelings by her long talk with the minister, but the Doctor
was the immediate adviser of the family, and had watched them through all
their troubles. Perhaps he could tell them what to do. She had but one
real object o