A PIECE OFF, SEVENTY YEARS AGO. HOW A RATCHET-SPRING STRUCK
WORK. WAS IT TOBY OR TOFT? BARNABY. BRAINTREE. ST. PAUL'S.
BARNABY'S CO-RESPONDENCE. OLD CHIPSTONE. HOW PHOEBE NEARLY LOST
HER EYE. OLD MARTHA PRICHARD. A REVERIE OF GWEN'S, ENDING IN
LAZARUS. MAISIE'S PURSE

Has it ever been your lot--you who read this--to be told that Life is
ebbing, slowly, slowly, every clock-tick telling on the hours that are
left before the end--the end of all that has made your fellow in the
flesh more than an image and a name? In so many hours, so many minutes,
that image as it was will be vanishing, that name will be a memory. All
that made either of them ours to love or hate, to be thought of as
friend or foe, will have ceased for all time--for all the time we
anticipate; more, or less as may be, than Oblivion's period, named in
her pact with Destiny. In so many hours, so many minutes, that unseen
mystery, the thing we call our friend's, our foe's, own _self_ will make
no sign to show that this is he. And we shall determine that he is no
more, or agree that he has departed, much as we have been taught to
think, but little as we have learned to know.

If you yourself have outlived other lives, and yet borne the
foreknowledge of Death unmoved, you will not understand why Gwen's heart
within her, when she heard Dr. Nash's words and took their meaning,
should be likened to a great stifled sob, nor why she had to summon all
her powers afield to bear arms against her tears. They came at her call,
and fought so well that the enemy had fled before she had to show dry
eyes, and speak with normal voice, to Ruth Thrale, who came in to say
that her mother was asking for her ladyship. Come what might, she must
keep her gloomy knowledge from Ruth.

"What a fuss about old me!" says the voice from the pillow, speaking
low, but with happy contentment. "Would not anyone think I was dying?"

Now, if only Dr. Nash would have kept those prophecies to himself, Gwen
would have thought her better. She could have discounted the weakness,
or laid it down to imperfect nourishment. She could not trust herself to
much speech, saying only:--"We shall have you walking about soon, and
what will the doctor say then?"

She looked across at the old sister, grave and silent, whom she had
supposed unoppressed, so far, by medical verdicts. But the invitation of
a smile she achieved, mechanically, to help towards incredulity of
Death, only met a