at.... There had never been such a man. There could never
be such an one again. So patient and enduring, so wise in all great
matters, so potent to inspire a multitude, so secure in his own soul....
Fools would chatter about his being a son of the people and his career
a triumph of the average man. Average! Great God, he was a ruler of
princes, a master, a compeller of men.... He could imagine what noble
nonsense Sumner would talk.... He looked with disfavor at the classic
face of the Bostonian.

But Sumner for once seemed to share his feelings. He, too, was looking
with reverent eyes towards the bed, and as he caught Stanton's gaze he
whispered words which the Secretary for War did not condemn: "The beauty
of Israel is slain upon thy high places."

The night hours crawled on with an intolerable slowness. Some of the
watchers sat, but Stanton remained rigid at the bed-foot. He had not
been well of late and had been ordered a long rest by his doctor, but
he was not conscious of fatigue. He would not have left his post for a
king's ransom, for he felt himself communing with the dying, sharing the
last stage in his journey as he had shared all the rough marches. His
proud spirit found a certain solace in the abasement of its humbleness.

A little before six the morning light began to pale the lamps. The
window showed a square of grey cloudy sky, and outside on the porch
there was a drip of rain. The faces revealed by the cold dawn were as
haggard and yellow as that of the dying man. Wafts of the outer air
began to freshen the stuffiness of the little room.

The city was waking up. There came the sound of far-away carts and
horses, and a boy in the lane behind the house began to whistle, and
then to sing. "When I was young," he sang--

"When I was young I used to wait
At Magea'n table 'n' hand de plate
An' pais de bottie when he was dry,
An' brush away de blue-tailed fly."

"It's his song," Stanton said to himself, and with the air came a rush
of strange feelings. He remembered a thousand things, which before had
been only a background of which he had been scarcely conscious. The
constant kindliness, the gentle healing sympathy, the homely humour
which he once thought had irritated but which he now knew had soothed
him.... This man had been twined round the roots of every heart.
All night he had been in an ecstasy of admiration, but now that was
forgotten in a yearning love. The President had been