Alice, the May queen, who said she should hear them as
they passed, with their feet above her in the long and silent grass.
Maybe the dead can't do that. I don't know, but if they can, I shall
listen for you, and be glad when you are near me, and I know I shall
wait on the golden seat by the river. Remember your promise to tell
Harold that it was all a mistake. My mind gets clearer toward the end,
and I see things differently from what I did once, and I know how I
blundered. You will tell him?'

Again Jerrie made the promise, with a sinking heart, not knowing to what
it bound her; and as Maude was becoming tired, she bade her try to rest
while she sat by and watched her.

The next day, at the same hour, when the balmy September air was
everywhere, and the mid-afternoon sun was filling the house with golden
light, and the crickets' chirp was heard in the long grass, and the
robins were singing in the tree-tops, another scene was presented in the
sick room, where Frank Tracy knelt at his dying daughter's side, with
his face bowed on his hands, while her fingers played feebly with his
white hair as she spoke to Arthur, who had just come in. They had told
him she was dying and had asked for him, and with his nervous horror of
everything painful and exciting, he had shrunk from the ordeal; but
Jerrie's will prevailed, and he went with her to the room, where Frank,
and his wife, and Tom were waiting--Tom standing, with folded arms, at
the foot of the bed, and looking, with hot, dry eyes, into the face on
the pillow, where death was setting his seal; the mother, half-fainting
upon the lounge, with the nurse beside her; and Frank, oblivious of
everything except the fact that Maude was dying.

'Kiss me good-bye, Uncle Arthur,' she said, when he came in, 'and come
this side where father is.' Then, as he went round and stood by Frank,
she reached her hand for his, and, putting it on her father's head, said
to him: 'Forgive him, Uncle Arthur; he is so sorry, poor father--the
dearest, the best man in the world. It was for me; say that you forgive
him.'

Only Frank and one other knew just what she meant, although a sudden
suspicion darted through Jerrie's mind, and, when Arthur looked
helplessly at her, she whispered to him:

'Never mind what she means--her mind may be wandering; but say that you
forgive him, no matter what it is.'

Thus adjured, Arthur said to the grief-stricken man, who shook like an
aspen:

'I know of no