ut very feebly.

"Tak' my duty to the Vicar, lad, Daddy Darwin's duty, and say he's at t'
last feather of the shuttle, and would be thankful for the Sacrament."

The Parson had come and gone. Daddy Darwin did not care to lie down, he
breathed with difficulty; so Jack made him easy in a big armchair, and
raked up the fire with cinders, and took a chair on the other side of
the hearth to watch with him. The old man slept comfortably and at last,
much wearied, the young man dozed also.

He awoke because Daddy Darwin moved, but for a moment he thought he must
be dreaming. So erect the old man stood, and with such delight in his
wide-open eyes. They were looking over Jack's head.

All that the lad had never seen upon his face seemed to have come back
to it--youth, hope, resolution, tenderness. His lips were trembling with
the smile of acutest joy.

Suddenly he stretched out his arms, and crying, "Alice!" started forward
and fell--dead--on the breast of his adopted son.

* * * * *

Craw! Craw! Craw! The crows flapped slowly home, and the Gaffers moved
off too. The sun was down, and "damps" are bad for "rheumatics."

"It's a strange tale," said Gaffer II., "but if all's true ye tell me,
there's not too many like him."

"That's right enough," Gaffer I. admitted. "He's been t' same all
through, and ye should ha' seen the burying he gave t' old chap. He was
rare and good to him by all accounts, and never gainsaid him ought,
except i' not lifting his voice as he should ha' done at t' grave. Jacks
sings a bass solo as well as any man i' t' place, but he stood yonder,
for all t' world like one of them crows, black o' visage, and black wi'
funeral clothes, and choked with crying like a child i'stead of a man."

"Well, well, t' old chap were all he had, I reckon," said Gaffer II.

"_That's_ right enough; and for going backwards, as ye may say, and
setting a wild graff on an old standard, yon will's done well for DADDY
DARWIN'S DOVECOT."

THE BLIND MAN AND THE TALKING DOG.

There was once an old man whom Fortune (whose own eyes are bandaged) had
deprived of his sight. She had taken his hearing also, so that he was
deaf. Poor he had always been, and as Time had stolen his youth and
strength from him, they had only left a light burden for Death to carry
when he should come the old man's way.

But Love (who is blind also) had given the Blind Man a Dog, who led him
out in the morning t