ou have to think you know better than other folks about it;"
and, though he would cavil most courageously at all George's
explanations, yet you might perceive, through all, that he was inly
uplifted to hear how his boy could talk.

If George was engaged in argument with any one else, he would sit by,
with his head bowed down, looking out from under his shaggy eyebrows
with a shamefaced satisfaction very unusual with him. Expressions of
affection from the naturally gentle are not half so touching as those
which are forced out from the hard-favored and severe; and George was
affected, even to pain, by the evident pride and regard of his father.

"He never said so much to any body before," thought he, "and what will
he do if I die?"

In such thoughts as these Grace found her brother engaged one still
autumn morning, as he stood leaning against the garden fence.

"What are you solemnizing here for, this bright day, brother George?"
said she, as she bounded down the alley.

The young man turned and looked on her happy face with a sort of
twilight smile.

"How _happy_ you are, Grace!" said he.

"To be sure I am; and you ought to be too, because you are better."

"I am happy, Grace--that is, I hope I shall be."

"You are sick, I know you are," said Grace; "you look worn out. O, I
wish your heart could _spring_ once, as mine does."

"I am not well, dear Grace, and I fear I never shall be," said he,
turning away, and fixing his eyes on the fading trees opposite.

"O George! dear George, don't, don't say _that_; you'll break all our
hearts," said Grace, with tears in her own eyes.

"Yes, but it is _true_, sister: I do not feel it on my own account so
much as----However," he added, "it will all be the same in heaven."

It was but a week after this that a violent cold hastened the progress
of debility into a confirmed malady. He sunk very fast. Aunt Sally, with
the self-deceit of a fond and cheerful heart, thought every day that "he
_would_ be better," and Uncle Lot resisted conviction with all the
obstinate pertinacity of his character, while the sick man felt that he
had not the heart to undeceive them.

James was now at the house every day, exhausting all his energy and
invention in the case of his friend; and any one who had seen him in his
hours of recklessness and glee, could scarcely recognize him as the
being whose step was so careful, whose eye so watchful, whose voice and
touch were so gentle, as he moved