tors said there was no hope. One consuming desire remained. He
wanted to see Julia once before he went away; and that one desire it
seemed impossible to gratify. When he learned of the failure of Jonas to
get any message to Julia through Cynthy, he had felt the keenest
disappointment, and had evidently been sinking since the hope that kept
him up had been taken away.

The mother sat by his bed, Gottlieb sat stupefied at the foot, with
Jonas by his side, and Wilhelmina was crying in a still fashion in one
corner of the room. August lay breathing feebly, and with his life
evidently ebbing.

"August!" said Andrew, as he stood over his bed, having come to announce
the arrival of Julia. "August!" Andrew tried to speak quietly, but there
was a something of hope in the inflection, a tremor of eagerness in the
utterance, that made the mother look up quickly and inquiringly.

August opened his eyes slowly and looked into the face of the
Philosopher. Then he slowly closed his eyes again, and a something, not
a smile--he was too weak for that--but a look of infinite content,
spread over his wan face.

"I know," he whisperd.

"Know what?" asked Andrew, leaning down to catch his words.

"Julia." And a single tear crept out from under the closed lid. The
tender mother wiped it away.

After resting a moment, August looked up at Andrew's face inquiringly.

"She is coming," said the Philosopher.

August smiled very faintly, but Andrew was sure he smiled, and again
leaned down his ear.

"She is here," whispered August; "I heard Charon bark, and
I--saw--your--face."

Andrew now stepped to the closet-door and opened it, and Julia came out.

"Blamed ef he a'n't a witch!" whispered Jonas. "Cunjures a angel out of
his cupboard!"

Julia did not see anybody or anything but the white and wasted face upon
the pillow. The eyes were now closed again, and she quickly crossed the
floor, and--not without a faint maidenly blush--stooped and kissed the
parched lips, from which the life seemed already to have fled.

And August with difficulty disengaged his wasted hand from the cover,
and laid his nerveless fingers--alas! like a skeleton's now--In the warm
hand of Julia, and said--she leaned down to listen, an he whispered
feebly through his dry lips out of a full heart--"Thank God!"

And the Philosopher, catching the words, said audibly, "Amen!"

And the mother only wept.

CHAPTER XXXV.

GETTING READY FOR THE END.

How Julia