s?"

"Of course I do, my dear boy."

"Did you ever sing--Doctor?"

"O my dear fellow! I never did really sing, and I haven't uttered a note
since--for twenty years."

"Can't you sing--ever so softly--just a verse--of--'I'm a Pilgrim'?"

"I--I--it's impossible, Richling, old fellow. I don't know either the
words or the tune. I never sing." He smiled at himself through his
tears.

"Well, all right," whispered Richling. He lay with closed eyes for a
moment, and then, as he opened them, breathed faintly through his parted
lips the words, spoken, not sung, while his hand feebly beat the
imagined cadence:--

"'The sun shines bright in my old Kentucky home;
'Tis summer, the darkies are gay;
The corn-tops are ripe, and the meadows are in bloom,
And the birds make music all the day.'"

The Doctor hid his face in his hands, and all was still.

By and by there came a whisper again. The Doctor raised his head.

"Doctor, there's one thing"--

"Yes, I know there is, Richling."

"Doctor,--I've been a poor stick of a husband."

"I never knew a good one, Richling."

"Doctor, you'll be a friend to Mary?"

The Doctor nodded; his eyes were full.

The sick man drew from his breast a small ambrotype, pressed it to his
lips, and poised it in his trembling fingers. It was the likeness of the
little Alice. He turned his eyes to his friend.

"I didn't need Mary's. But this is all I've ever seen of my little girl.
To-morrow, at daybreak,--it will be just at daybreak,--when you see that
I've passed, I want you to lay this here on my breast. Then fold my
hands upon it"--

His speech was arrested. He seemed to hearken an instant.

"Doctor," he said, with excitement in his eye and sudden strength of
voice, "what is that I hear?"

"I don't know," replied his friend; "one of the servants probably down
in the hall." But he, too, seemed to have been startled. He lifted his
head. There was a sound of some one coming up the stairs in haste.

"Doctor." The Doctor was rising from his chair.

"Lie still, Richling."

But the sick man suddenly sat erect.

"Doctor--it's--O Doctor, I"--

The door flew open; there was a low outcry from the threshold, a moan of
joy from the sick man, a throwing wide of arms, and a rush to the
bedside, and John and Mary Richling--and the little Alice, too--

Come, Doctor Sevier; come out and close the door.

* * *

"Strangest thing on earth!" I once hea