cost him dear, for he could never move his body without pain,
but the changing landscapes and the strange cities more than repaid
him; and when one morning I woke him early and he saw for the first
time the distant mountains clothed in dawn, there came a new light into
his eyes.

We reached the hut late in the afternoon. I had made my arrangements
so that we should be there alone. Our needs were simple, and in
various wanderings I had learnt to be independent. I did not tell him
why I had brought him there, beyond the beauty and stillness of the
place. Purposely I left him much alone there, making ever-lengthening
walks my excuse, and though he was always glad of my return I felt that
the desire was growing upon him to be there by himself.

One evening, having climbed farther than I had intended, I lost my way.
It was not safe in that neighbourhood to try new pathways in the dark,
and chancing upon a deserted shelter, I made myself a bed upon the
straw.

I found him seated outside the hut when I returned, and he greeted me
as if he had been expecting me just at that moment and not before. He
guessed just what had happened, he told me, and had not been alarmed.
During the day I found him watching me, and in the evening, as we sat
in his favourite place outside the hut, he turned to me.

"You think it true?" he said. "That you and I sat here years ago and
talked?"

"I cannot tell," I answered. "I only know that he died here, if there
be such a thing as death--that no one has ever lived here since. I
doubt if the door has ever been opened till we came."

"They have always been with me," he continued, "these dreams. But I
have always dismissed them. They seemed so ludicrous. Always there
came to me wealth, power, victory. Life was so easy."

He laid his thin hand on mine. A strange new look came into his
eyes--a look of hope, almost of joy.

"Do you know what it seems to me?" he said. "You will laugh perhaps,
but the thought has come to me up here that God has some fine use for
me. Success was making me feeble. He has given me weakness and
failure that I may learn strength. The great thing is to be strong."

SYLVIA OF THE LETTERS.

Old Ab Herrick, so most people called him. Not that he was actually
old; the term was an expression of liking rather than any reflection on
his years. He lived in an old-fashioned house--old-fashioned, that is,
for New York--on the south side of West Twentiet