ays shy, you know, miss; and with none of his kindred
left, and no wife to say 'good-by' to him, right or wrong I resolved
alone to see him depart to his everlasting rest. And people may talk
about hirelings, but I think nobody loved him as I did."

Here Mrs. Price broke fairly down, and I could not help admiring her.
To a faithful servant's humility and duty she had added a woman's pure
attachment to one more gifted than herself, and ruined for life by her
own sex. But she fell away frightened and ashamed beneath my look, as if
I had caught her in sacrilege.

"Well, miss, we all must come and go," she began again, rather clumsily;
"and, good and great as he was, his lordship has left few to mourn for
him. Only the birds and beasts and animals that he was so good to; they
will miss him, if men don't. There came one of his favorite pigeons,
white as snow all over, and sat on the sill of the window, and cooed,
and arched up its neck for his fingers. And he tried to put his fingers
out, but they were ice already. Whether that or something else brought
home his thoughts, who knows, miss? but he seemed to mix the pigeon up
with some of his own experience.

"'Say that I have forgiven her, if ever she did harm to me,' he
whispered, without moving lips. 'Times and times, when I was young, I
was not always steady;' and then he seemed to wander in his mind among
old places; and he would have laughed at something if his voice had been
sufficient.

"'Bitter grief and pain shall never come again,' he seemed to breathe,
with a calm, soft smile, like a child with its rhyme about the rain when
the sun breaks out; and sure enough, the sun upon the quilt above
his heart was shining, as if there could be no more clouds. Then he
whispered a few short words to the Lord, more in the way of thanks than
prayer, and his eyes seemed to close of their own accord, or with some
good spirit soothing them. And when or how his sleep passed from this
world into the other there was scarcely the flutter of a nerve to show.
There he lies, like an image of happiness. Will you come and see him?"

I followed her to the bedroom, and am very glad that I did so; for
it showed me the bliss of a good man's rest, and took away my fear of
death.

CHAPTER LI

LIFE SINISTER

When business and the little cares of earthly life awoke again, every
one told me (to my great surprise and no small terror at first, but
soon to increasing acquiescence) that I w