rty, I have every
reason to believe she has remained up to the present hour in total
ignorance as to their cause. ~106~~

CHAPTER XII -- DEATH AND CHANGE

"The voice which I did more esteem
Than music on her sweetest key;

Those eyes which unto me did seem
More comfortable than the day;

Those now by me, as they have been,
Shall never more be heard or seen;

But what I once enjoyed in them,
Shall seem hereafter as a dream.

"All earthly comforts vanish thus;
So little hold of them have we;

That we from them, or they from us,
May in a moment ravished be.

Yet we are neither just nor wise
If present mercies we despise,

Or mind not how these may be made
A thankful use of what we had."
--Wither.

"Up springs at every step to claim a tear
Some youthful friendship form'd and cherish'd here."
--Rogers.

"Time flies away fast!
The while we never remember--
How soon our life here
Grows old with the year
That dies with the next December."
--Herrick.

AS I was undressing that night Coleman came into my room, and grasping
my hand with his own shook it warmly, saying: "I could not go to sleep,
Frank, without coming to thank you for the noble way in which you risked
your own life to save mine to-day. I laughed it off before Lawless and
the rest of the fellows, for when I feel deeply, I hate to show it; but
indeed," (and the tears stood in his eyes while he spoke), "indeed I am
not ungrateful."

"My dear Freddy," returned I, "do not suppose I thought you so for a
moment; there, say no more about it; you would have done the same thing
for me that I did for you, had our positions been reversed."

"I am not so sure of that," was his reply; "I should have wished to
do so; but it is not every one who can act with such promptitude and
decision in moments of danger."

~107~~"There is one request I should like to make," said I.

"What is it?" replied he quickly.

"Do not forget to thank Him, whose instrument I was, for having so
mercifully preserved your life."

A silent pressure of the hand was the only answer, and we parted for the
night.

Owing, probably, to over-fatigue, it was some little time before I went
to sleep. As I lay courting the fick