le blossom out of season. Several large
gray cats arose at the woman's entrance and came crying to the kittens
in the basket; and she motioned to Adams to put the little creatures on
the floor. Then going to the bed she stooped over the man who lay
there--outstretched and perfectly motionless as if wrapped in a profound
and quiet slumber. One iron-stained misshapened hand lay on the outside
of the coverlet and as Adams looked at it, he saw in it a symbol of the
whole tragedy upon which he gazed. The face of the sleeper was hidden
from him, but so expressive was the distorted, toil-hardened hand, with
the fingers fallen a little open as if in relief from a recently dropped
tool, that the voice of the woman sounding in his ears merely put into
words his own unspoken knowledge.

"Ah, he's gone," she said. "He promised me he'd hold out if he could,
but I guess he couldn't manage it."

Then standing there in the bare, cleanly swept room, bright with the
voices of children which floated in from the staircase, Adams was
conscious, with a consciousness more vital and penetrating than he had
ever felt before, that the place, the universe and his own soul were
filled to overflowing with the infinite presence of God.

CHAPTER XI

ON THE WINGS OF LIFE

It was on the morning after Gerty's conversation with Adams that Laura
carried the news of her engagement to Uncle Percival.

"I've something really interesting for you this morning," she began,
taking his withered little hand in hers as she sat down on the high
footstool before his chair.

His wandering blue eyes fixed her for a moment, then, turning
restlessly, travelled to his flute which lay silent on the table on his
elbow.

"Ah, but I'm ahead of you for once," he remarked with his amiable
toothless smile, "there's a new batch of rabbits in the yard and I've
already seen 'em. Don't tell Rosa, my dear," he cautioned in a whisper,
"or she'll be sure to drown 'em everyone."

Releasing his hand from her clasp, he reached for his flute, and, with a
pathetic delight in the presence of his enforced listener, raised the
mouth of the instrument to his lips. The tune he played was "The Last
Rose of Summer," and Laura sat patiently at his side until the end. With
the final note, even as he laid the flute lovingly across his knees, she
saw that the music had strengthened and controlled his enfeebled mind.

"I want to tell you that I shall be married in the autumn, dear U