n his
heart.

"So as I've hunted fur him!" she whispered, weakly. "I didn't thenk it
wud come to this. So as I loved him! Oh, Mr. Holmes, he's hed a pore
chance in livin',--forgive him this! Him that'll come to-morrow 'd say
to forgive him this."

She caught the old man's head in her arms with an agony of tears, and
held it tight.

"I hev hed a pore chance," he said, looking up,--"that's God's truth,
Lo! I dunnot keer fur that: it's too late goin' back. But Lo--Mas'r,"
he mumbled, servilely, "it's on'y a little time t' th' end: let me stay
with Lo. She loves me,--Lo does."

A look of disgust crept over Holmes's face.

"Stay, then," he muttered,--"I wash my hands of you, you old scoundrel!"

He bent over Lois with his rare, pitiful smile.

"Have I his life in my hands? I put it into yours,--so, child! Now put
it all out of your head, and look up here to wish me good-bye."

She looked up cheerfully, hardly conscious how deep the danger had
been; but the flush had gone from her face, leaving it sad and still.

"I must go to keep Christmas, Lois," he said, playfully.

"Yoh're keepin' it here, Sir." She held her weak grip on his hand
still, with the vague outlook in her eyes that came there sometimes.

"Was it fur me yoh done it?"

"Yes, for you."

"And fur Him that's comin', Sir?" smiling.

Holmes's face grew graver.

"No, Lois." She looked into his eyes bewildered. "For the poor child
that loved me" he said, half to himself, smoothing her hair.

Perhaps in that day when the under-currents of the soul's life will be
bared, this man will know the subtile instincts that drew him out of
his self-reliance by the hand of the child that loved him to the Love
beyond, that was man and died for him, as well as she. He did not see
it now.

The clear evening light fell on Holmes, as he stood there looking down
at the dying little lamiter: a powerful figure, with a face supreme,
masterful, but tender: you will find no higher type of manhood. Did
God make him of the same blood as the vicious, cringing wretch
crouching to hide his black face at the other side of the bed? Some
such thought came into Lois's brain, and vexed her, bringing the tears
to her eyes: he was her father, you know. She drew their hands
together, as if she would have joined them, then stopped, closing her
eyes wearily.

"It's all wrong," she muttered,--"oh, it's far wrong! Ther' 's One
could make them 'like. Not me."

She str