n Mrs. Levice took up her position
in her husband's room, Ruth wandered downstairs. The silence seemed
vocal with her fears.

"So I tell ye's two," remarked the cook as her young mistress passed
from the kitchen, "that darter and father is more than kin, they is
soul-kin, if ye know what that means; an' the boss's girl do love him
more'n seven times seven children which such a man-angel should 'a'
had." For the "boss" was to those who served him "little lower than the
angels;" and their prayers the night before had held an eloquent appeal
for his welfare.

Ruth, with her face against the window, watched in sickening anxiety.
She knew they were not to be expected for some time, but it was better
to stand here than in the fear-haunted background.

Suddenly and almost miraculously, it seemed to her, a carriage stood
before the gate. She flew to the door, and as she opened it leaned for
one second blindly against the wall.

"Tell my mother they have come," she gasped to the maid, who had entered
the hall.

Then she looked out. Two men were carrying one between them up the walk.
As they came nearer, she saw how it was. That bundled-up figure was her
father's; that emaciated, dark, furrowed face was her father's; but as
they carefully helped him up the steps, and the loud, painful, panting
breaths came to her, were they her father's too? No need, Ruth, to
rush forward and vainly implore some power to tear from yourself the
respiration withheld from him. Air, air! So, man, so; one step more and
then relief. Ah!

She paused in agony at the foot of the stairs as the closing door shut
out the dreadful sound. We never value our blessings till we have lost
them; who thinks it a boon to be able to breathe without thinking of the
action?

He had not seen her; his eyes had been closed as if in exhaustion as
they gently helped him along, and she had understood at once that the
only thing to be thought of was, by some manner of means, to remove the
choking obstacle from his lungs. Oh, to be able in her young strength
to hold the weak, loved form in her arms and breathe into him her
overflowing life-breath! She walked upstairs presently; he would be
expecting her. As she reached the upper landing, Kemp came from the
room, closing the door behind him. His bearing revealed a gravity she
had never witnessed before. In his tightly buttoned morning-suit, with
the small white tie at his throat, he might have been officiating at
some