ts, and glowering dimly at her, with the strange intensity of gaze
in the deaf and dumb. There was a little oak table before him, with his
copy of Plato's Dialogues and a black leather Bible that had belonged to
his forefathers, lying upon it; but both of them were closed, and he
looked drowsy and listless.

"Good sakes! Phebe," cried Mrs. Nixey, "whatever ails thy father? He
looks more like dust and ashes than a livin' man. Hast thou sent for no
physic for him?"

"I didn't know he was ill," answered Phebe. "Father always feels the
winter long and trying. He'll be all right when the spring comes."

"I'll ask him what's the matter with him," said Mrs. Nixey, drawing his
slate to her, and writing in the boldest letters she could form, as if
his deafness made it needful to write large.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"Nothing, save old age," he answered in his small, neat hand-writing.
There was a gentle smile on his face as he pushed the slate under the
eyes of Mrs. Nixey and Phebe. He had sometimes thought he must tell
Phebe he would not be long with her, but his hands refused to convey
such sad warnings to his young daughter. He had put it off from day to
day, though he was not sorry now to give some slight hint of his fears.

"Old! he's no older nor me," said Mrs. Nixey. "A pretty thing it'ud be
if folks gave up at sixty or so. There's another ten years' work in
you," she wrote on the slate.

"Ten years' work." How earnestly he wished it was true! He might still
earn a little fortune for Phebe; for he was known all through the
county, and beyond, and could get a good price for his carving. He
stretched out his hand and took down his unfinished work, looking
longingly at it.

Phebe's fingers were moving fast, so fast that he could not follow them.
Of late he had been unable to seize the meaning of those swift, glancing
finger-tips. He had reached the stage of a man who can no longer catch
the lower tones of a familiar voice, and has to guess at the words thus
spoken. If he lived long enough to lose his sight he would be cut off
from all communion with the outer world, even with his daughter.

"Come close to me, and speak more slowly," he said to her. "I am growing
old and dark. Yet I am only sixty, and my father lived to be over
seventy. I was over forty when you were born. It was a sunny day, and I
kept away from the house, in the shed, till I saw Mrs. Nixey there
beckoning to me. And when I came in the hou