e reason to think badly
of myself."

"We are all in good hands, Tom," said Dr. Hewett, seeing again the boy
who used to play in the Rectory garden with Ned, and speaking to him in
the old fashion.

"I know that," answered Tom. "I have known it all along, which has been
a blessing to me," he added, a little as if he were speaking of a third
person. Then he roused himself further. "I want to tell you where my
will is. I don't like to hurt a woman's feelings by speaking of it to my
kind, indefatigable nurse. Besides, the Millars will benefit by it."

"The old man," sighed the Rector, "always thinking of others before
yourself."

"'I know that my Redeemer liveth,'" was Tom's testimony; "speak to me of
Him, Rector, while I am able to hear," said the sick man, in the tone of
one whose ears were growing dull to earthly sounds.

CHAPTER XXI.

MISS FRANKLIN'S MISTAKE.

Tom Robinson went still deeper into the shadow of the valley, possibly
as far as man ever went and returned. He grew as weak and helpless as an
infant, until at last he lost consciousness, and lay prostrate and
still, with closed eyes and sealed ears--nothing alive in him save the
subtle principle which is compared to a vapour and a breath which no man
can see or handle, yet whose presence or absence makes all the
difference between an animated body still linked to both worlds and a
mass of soulless clay hastening to corruption. All that skill and
devotion could do--and Tom Robinson had them both--was to keep on
without despairing, maintaining warmth against the growing chillness,
and administering stimulants and nourishment by spoonfuls and drops.

On the night which it was feared would be Tom Robinson's last, Miss
Franklin would no longer be denied her place among the watchers. She
had been kept away in obedience to poor Tom's express orders, that in
the attempt to minimize the fever no communication should be kept up on
his account between the Corn Exchange where he lay and either his house
or "Robinson's," notwithstanding the proofs that the disease did not
spread by contagion or infection.

Miss Franklin did not desire to dispossess Annie of the post which, in
spite of every remonstrance, she was holding latterly almost night and
day. Miss Franklin had no faculty for nursing, and small experience to
guide her. She was rather a nervous woman in her impulsiveness, and
after one look at what was like the mask of Tom Robinson, utterly
incapabl