e idea of
entering the house.

"You go in, Bill," said one.

"No, you go. I can't do it," said Bill, scratching the gravel walk with
his toes.

"I say somebody's got to go," said the first speaker.

"I'll go," said Boone Jones, the toughest of the party. "I ain't
afeerd," he added huskily, as he took the flowers in his hand and
knocked at the door.

But when Boone got in, and saw Priscilla lying there so white, he began
to choke with a strange emotion. Priscilla tried to take the flowers
from his hand, but Anna Poindexter took them. Priscilla tried to thank
him, but she could only whisper his name.

"Boone----" she said, and ceased from weakness.

But the lad did not wait. He burst into weeping, and bolted out the
door.

"I say, boys," he repeated, choking his sobs, "she's just dyin', and
she said Boone--you know--and couldn't say no more, and I couldn't
stand it."

Feeling life ebbing, Priscilla took the hand of the marquis. Then,
holding to the hand of D'Entremont, she beckoned Henry to come near. As
he bent over her she whispered, looking significantly at the marquis,
"Henry, God bless you, my noble-hearted friend!" And as Henry turned
away, the marquis put his arm about him, but said nothing.

Priscilla's nature abhorred anything dramatic in dying, or rather she
did not think of effect at all; so she made no fine speeches. But when
she had ceased to breathe, the old preacher said, "The bridegroom has
come."

She left an envelope for Henry. What it had in it no one but Henry ever
knew. I have heard him say that it was one word, which became the key
to all the happiness of his after life. Judging from the happiness he
has in his home with Anna, his wife, it would not be hard to tell what
the word was. The last time I was at his house I noticed that their
eldest child was named Priscilla, and that the boy who came next was
Antoine. Henry told me that Priscilla left a sort of "will" for the
marquis, in which she asked him to do the Christian work that she would
have liked to do. Nothing could have been wiser if she had sought only
his own happiness, for in activity for others is the safety of a
restless mind. He had made himself the special protector of the ten
little Slabtown urchins.

Henry told me in how many ways, through Challeau, Lafort & Company, the
marquis had contrived to contribute to his prosperity without offending
his delicacy. He found himself possessed of practically unlimited
credit th