t' lyin',
long ago, when ye was a little lad." He lifted himself in the chair,
turned upon me--his eyes frankly wet. "Do ye go there," says he, "an'
kneel, like ye used t' do in the days when ye was but a little child,
an' do ye say, once again, for my sake, Dannie, the twenty-third
psa'm."

I rose upon this holy errand.

"'_The Lord is my shepherd,_'" my uncle repeated, looking away to the
fool's great Gates, "'_I shall not want._'"

That he should not.

"'_He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside
the still waters._'"

And so it should be.

"Dannie," my uncle burst out, flashing upon me with a twinkle, as when
I was a lad, "I 'low I've fetched ye up very well: for say what ye
will, 'twas a wonderful little anchor I give ye t' hold to!"

* * * * *

I went then to the little bed where as a child I lay waiting for sleep
to come bearing fairy dreams. 'Twas still and dusky in the room: the
window, looking out upon the wide, untroubled waters, was a square of
glory; and the sea whispered melodiously below, as it had done long,
long ago, when my uncle fended my childish heart from all the fears of
night and day. I looked out upon the waste of sea and sky and rock,
where the sombre wonder of the dusk was working, clouds in embers,
cliffs and water turning to shadows; and I was comforted by this
returning beauty. I repeated the twenty-third psalm, according to my
teaching, reverently kneeling, as I was bid; and my heart responded,
as it has never failed to do. I remembered: I remembered the windless
dusks and fresh winds and black gales through which as a child I had
here serenely gone to sleep because my uncle sat awake and watchful
below. I remembered his concern and diffident caresses in the night
when I had called to him to come: I remembered all that he had borne
and done to provide the happiness and welfare he sought in loving
patience to give the child he had. Once again, as when I was a child,
the sea and sunset took my soul as a harp to stir with harmonious
chords of faith; and I was not disquieted any more--nor in any way
troubled concerning the disclosure of that black mystery in which I
had thrived to this age of understanding. And 'twas in this mood--this
grateful recollection of the multitudinous kindnesses of other
years--that I got up from my knees to return to my uncle.

"Dannie," says he, having been waiting, it seemed, to tell me th