gers pick the curious
bits of slate from out the moving mass. And as he fastened up the
swing-board and pushed the empty car to the carriage, he imagined how
the boy's face would light up with pleasure, or his brown eyes gleam
with wonder and delight in looking on these strange specimens of
nature's handiwork.

But to-day Ralph was not there. In all probability he would never
be there again to work. Another boy was sitting on his bench in the
screen-room, another boy was watching rainbow coal and fern-marked
slate. This thought in Bachelor Billy's mind was a sad one. He pushed
the empty car on the carriage, and sat down on a bench by the window
to consider the subject of Ralph's absence.

Something had gone wrong at the foot of the shaft. There were no cars
ready for hoisting, and Billy and his co-laborer, Andy Gilgallon, were
able to rest for many minutes from their toil.

As they sat looking down upon the green landscape below them, Bachelor
Billy's attention was attracted to a boy who was hurrying along the
turnpike road a quarter of a mile away. He came to the foot of the
hill and turned up the path to the breaker, looking up to the men in
the shaft-tower as he hastened on, and waving his hand to them.

"I believe it's Ralph," said Billy, "it surely is. An ye'll mind both
carriages for a bit when they start up, Andy, I'll go t' the lad," and
he hurried across the tracks and down the dark and devious way that
led to the surface of the earth.

At the door of the pump-room he met Ralph. "Uncle Billy!" shouted the
boy, "I want to see you; I've got sumpthin' to tell you."

Two or three men were standing by, watching the pair curiously, and
Ralph continued: "Come up to the tree where they ain't so much noise;
'twon't take long."

He led the way across the level space, up the bank, and into the
shadow of the tree beneath which the breaker boys had gathered a year
before to pass resolutions of sympathy for Robert Burnham's widow;

They were no sooner seated on the rude bench than Ralph began:--

"I ought to 'a' told you before, I done very wrong not to tell you,
but I couldn't raise the courage to do it till this mornin'. Here's
what I want you to know."

Then Ralph told, with full detail, of his visit to Sharpman's office
on Sunday evening, of what he had heard there, of his subsequent
journey through the streets of the city, of his night of agony, of his
morning of shame, of his final victory over himself.