them into their seats, drew the arm-chair
close to theirs. Then he spoke. He spoke long, and as he had not spoken
anywhere but at the bedside scarce ever in his life before. The young
husband and wife forgot that he had ever said a grating word. A soft
love-warmth began to fill them through and through. They seemed to
listen to the gentle voice of an older and wiser brother. A hand of Mary
sank unconsciously upon a hand of John. They smiled and assented, and
smiled, and assented, and Mary's eyes brimmed up with tears, and John
could hardly keep his down. The Doctor made the whole case so plain and
his propositions so irresistibly logical that the pair looked from his
eyes to each other's and laughed. "Cozumel!" They did not utter the
name; they only thought of it both at one moment. It never passed their
lips again. Their visitor brought them to an arrangement. The fifty
dollars were to be placed to John's credit on the books kept by
Narcisse, as a deposit from Richling, and to be drawn against by him in
such littles as necessity might demand. It was to be "secured"--they all
three smiled at that word--by Richling's note payable on demand. The
Doctor left a prescription for the refractory chills.

As he crossed Canal street, walking in slow meditation homeward at the
hour of dusk, a tall man standing against a wall, tin cup in hand,--a
full-fledged mendicant of the steam-boiler explosion, tin-proclamation
type,--asked his alms. He passed by, but faltered, stopped, let his hand
down into his pocket, and looked around to see if his pernicious example
was observed. None saw him. He felt--he saw himself--a drivelling
sentimentalist. But weak, and dazed, sore wounded of the archers, he
turned and dropped a dime into the beggar's cup.

Richling was too restless with the joy of relief to sit or stand. He
trumped up an errand around the corner, and hardly got back before he
contrived another. He went out to the bakery for some crackers--fresh
baked--for Mary; listened to a long story across the baker's counter,
and when he got back to his door found he had left the crackers at the
bakery. He went back for them and returned, the blood about his heart
still running and leaping and praising God.

"The sun at midnight!" he exclaimed, knitting Mary's hands in his.
"You're very tired. Go to bed. Me? I can't yet. I'm too restless."

He spent more than an hour chatting with Mrs. Riley, and had never found
her so "nice" a person bef