turned to me.

No one disturbed us. Below the traffic of a great city roared up to us
and a brass band clanged merrily. The crowd hurried past, drawn by the
tidings that "the fight was on," and choked the outlets and suffocated
the galleries.

"He's been that way ever since he read, suddenly, that Blaine was
dead"--she said, lowering her voice to keep it safe from his failing
ears--"he had a kind of a stroke, and ever since he's had the notion
that Blaine was alive and was going to be nominated, and his heart was
set on going here. Mother was afraid; but when--when he cried to go, I
could not help taking him--I didn't know but maybe it might help him; he
was such a smart man and such a good man; and he has had trouble about
mortgaging the farm; and he worked so hard to get the money back, so
mother would feel right. All through the hot weather he worked, and I
guess that's how it happened. You don't think it's hurt him? The doctor
said he might go. He told T--, a gentleman friend of mine who asked
him."

"Oh, dear, no," I exclaimed, "it has been good for him."

I asked for her address, which fortunately was near, and I offered her
the cab that was waiting for me. I had some ado to persuade her to
accept it; but when I pointed to her grandfather's pale face she did
accept it, thanking me in a simple but touching way, and, of course,
begging me to visit her at Izard, Ohio.

All this while we had been sedulously fanning the old man, who would
occasionally open his eyes for a second, but gave no other sign of
returning consciousness.

The young Reed man came back with the water. He was bathing the old
man's forehead in a very skillful and careful way, using my
handkerchief, when an uproar of cheering shook the very floor under us
and the rafters overhead.

"Who is it?" the old man inquired, feebly.

"Foraker! Foraker!" bellowed the crowd.

"He's nominated him!" muttered the old man; but this time he did not
attempt to rise. With a smile of great content he leaned against his
grand-daughter's strong young frame and listened, while the cheers
swelled into a deafening din, an immeasurable tumult of sound, out of
which a few strong voices shaped the chorus of the Battle Cry of
Freedom, to be caught up by fifteen thousand throats and pealed through
the walls far down the city streets to the vast crowd without.

The young Reed "boomer," carried away by the moment, flung his free hand
above his head and yelled defiant