instructions. I can't stay--would if I could--case of child-labor down
the road--nobody else to attend to it. I'll be back before morning.
That will be the crisis. He's in splendid hands; a trained nurse
couldn't be better."

"Anything I can do, Doc?" Henley swallowed a lump of emotion that had
risen in his throat.

"Not a thing; but you might stay right here. Miss Dixie might--if
anything happened--she might need you. She's a plucky little woman, and
it might be best for her to have some sort of company. She is wrought
up. She loves the boy as a mother would her own child, and yet she is
calm and steady."

Henley leaned on the fence and watched the vehicle disappear in the
misty moonlight which seemed to fall like a mantle from the mountain. He
was resting his head on the fence when he felt a light touch on his arm.
It was Dixie.

"He is sleeping," she whispered. "The doctor said it would be good for
him. Oh, Alfred, it's pitiful, pitiful! I'm glad to see that you feel
like you do. He loves you; he has spoken of you scores of times, and,
when I told him just now that you was down here watching, he was glad. I
wonder why God tears a human soul to pieces like this. If Joe is taken
to-night I don't think I could ever get over it. Oh, Alfred, my heart
yearns over him. At this minute I could ask for nothing better than to
be allowed to work for that child all the rest of my life." Tears stood
in her wonderful eyes, and her breast, under its thin covering, rose and
fell tumultuously.

"You are a sweet, good girl, Dixie." Henley's voice sounded new to
himself. "You are the noblest woman that ever drew the breath of life.
As the Lord is my Redeemer, I'd give all I possess on earth to help you
to-night."

Their eyes met in a strange gaze of wonderment. "I believe it," she
said, simply, while a sad smile touched her pulsing lips. "Yes, I
believe it. But I must go back."

He sat under the beechnut-tree watching the attic window till the
eastern sky above the mountains began to take on a grayish cast. Now and
then through the long vigil Dixie would come to the window and look down
on him, only to nod knowingly and retire, as if content with his mute
companionship.

It was almost dawn when the doctor came.

"I was delayed," he explained as he sprang out of his buggy; "bad case
of labor--had to use instruments, but successful." He hurried to the
gate without hitching his horse. "How is he?"

"I can't say, Doc--you'd b