teful if I do not seem so. It is hard for one
unaccustomed to charity to accept it, you know. I must know to whom I
am indebted, for I certainly hope the time may come when it may be
repaid.'"

"What did he say?"

"His reply was, 'This is not given as charity. It is to repay a debt
owed to one very dear to you and I am not at liberty to mention the
debtor's name. I assure you, however, that it is not charity, but the
payment of an obligation. The only request is, that this home, never,
so long as in your possession, be mortgaged again.'"

"Father was always helping people and saying nothing about it,"
replied Rodney, and the tears came to his eyes.

They sat many minutes looking into the open fire. Then Mrs. Allison
said: "Rodney, I wish you would go to the closet in my room and get
the little trunk in which your father kept his papers."

The boy brought back a little leather-bound trunk, neatly ornamented
and secured with brass headed tacks.

Mrs. Allison was a woman of strong character and, after the shock of
hearing the report of her husband's death, took up her duties with
composure, though the lines in her face seemed deeper, and Rodney saw
that an errant lock of her hair, which he had always thought a part of
the attractiveness of her fair face, was now quite gray, and, as she
pushed it aside, a familiar way she had, he noticed how thin and white
her hand was and saw that it trembled.

"As I put the deed in the trunk with the other papers, the day it was
brought to me, I noticed a sealed paper there, which I think we
perhaps should open," saying which she took it and held it out that
her son might read the inscription, which was: "To be opened by my
dear wife after my death, if she should survive, otherwise to be
burned unread."

She broke the seal and read, the boy watching her face as she did so.
Having read it, she allowed it to lie in her lap for a time, and then
gave it to Rodney, and this is what he read, his wonder increasing
with every line:

"MY BELOVED WIFE:--As you read this you may recall the last evening in
the old home before we came to Charlottesville. I sat by the window
and you said, 'It is a pretty picture, David, the water in the creek,
in the sunset colours, looks like wine and the road is a brown ribbon
on green velvet. But perhaps you are not thinking of that at all.
Sometimes, David, I think there is a part of your life in which I do
not live.'

"You did not see me start at tho