have to ace marriage, domesticity, and mostly all the issues of
life assigned them, without training, I did not give up heart. As a
first effort I determined that Dawn should chaperon me when I went for
my row on the morrow. As I looked at the sun sinking behind the blue
hills and shedding a wonderfully mellow light over the broad valley, I
thought of my own life, in which there had been none to pull a
heart-easing string, and the bitterness of those to whom that for
which they had fought has been won so late as to be Dead Sea fruit,
took possession of me.

The doctors had several long and fee-inspiring terms for my malady,
but I knew it to be an old-fashioned ailment known as heart-break--the
result of disappointment, want of affection, and over-work. The old
bitterness gripped the organ of life then; it brought me to my knees.
I tried to call out, but it was unavailing. Sharp, fiendish pain, and
then oblivion.

EIGHT.

GRANDMA TURNS NURSE.

When I came to it was dark enough for lights, Dawn's well-moulded
hands were supporting my head, Grandma Clay's voice was sternly
engineering affairs, and Andrew was blubbering at the foot of the bed
on which I was resting.

I tried to tell them there was no cause for alarm, and to beg
grandma's pardon for turning her house into a "sick hospital," but
though not quite unconscious, I appeared entirely so.

"I wish you had sense to have gone for Dr Tinker when Dr Smalley
wasn't in," said the old lady, with nothing but solicitude in her
voice.

The sternness in evidence when I had been trying to gain entrance to
her house was entirely absent.

"I'm afraid she's dead," said Dawn.

"Oh, she ain't; is she, Dawn?" sobbed Andrew. "She was a decent sort
of person. A pity some of those other old scotty-boots that was here
in the summer didn't die instead." And that cemented a firm friendship
between the lad and myself. An individual utterly alone in the world
prizes above all things a little real affection.

Presently there was a clearance in the room, effected by the doctor,
who, after a short examination, pronounced my malady a complication of
heart troubles, gave a few instructions, and further remarked, "Send
up for the mixture. She isn't dead, but she may snuff out before
morning. She's bound to go at a moment's notice, sometime. Give her
plenty of air. If she has any friends she ought to be sent to them if
she pulls through this."

Grandma gave the meagre detail