iles was saying as Isabel reached the spot.
"He's no more nor just stunned, mum."

He had lifted the fallen man's head and shoulders, and Mrs. Stebbens
came, dropping to her knees and sprinkling water into the still, white
face.

Isabel threw herself between.

[Illustration: "Arthur! Arthur! can't you speak?"]

"Arthur! Arthur! can't you speak? Oh, let us move him into the library!"

"Yes, um!" exclaimed Giles. "'E'll come to in there; you can see 'e's
only stunned."

He tried to raise him, and Isabel and Sarah moved to help; but the wife
turned on hearing Ruth's voice at her side, and Leonard Byington lifted
the limp man in his arms unaided, and bore him to the library lounge.

"Arthur," he pleaded, with arms still under him, "can't you speak to us,
dear boy? Say at least good-by, can't you, Arthur?" He parted the
clothing from neck and breast, and laid an ear to his heart.

"Do you hear it, Leonard?" cried the wife. "Oh, you do hear it, don't
you, Leonard?"

There was no answer. For a moment Leonard's own form relaxed, and he
turned his face and buried it in the unresponsive breast. Then he lifted
it again, and taking the other face between his hands he sank his brow
to the brow upturned and cried: "God rest your soul, Arthur! Oh, Arthur,
Arthur, God rest your soul!"

XXII

MORNING GRAY

Mrs. Morris gave the physician her account of the accident, the
physician gave the reporters his, and no other ever got into the old
street or the town it looks down upon with such sweet superiority.

Said the rustic vestryman to another pall-bearer, as they turned toward
their homes, "Many's the time All Angels's been craowded, but I never
see it craowded as 'twas this time."

The new mound was white under January snows when Godfrey and Isabel
first stood beside it together; and when summer had come and gone again,
and at last the time drew near when, by the regular alternations of the
service, the ocean wanderer's three years afloat were to be followed by
three ashore, it was beside that mound that Ruth let him ask the
long-withheld question.

And once more the new year followed the old.

On one of its earliest days, "I cal'late," a certain somebody began to
say to General Byington, "th' never was a happier weddin' so quiet, nor
a qui--" But he caught the sheen of his daughter's spectacles and
forebore.

And still moved on the heavenly procession of the seasons; and as each
new one passed with smile an