he became convinced of it, for no Sparrow
came, and no coal lay upon the hearth. The basement window fortunately
looked toward the south, and the pale April sunshine was beginning
to make itself felt, so that the temperature of the room was not
unbearable. But Tig languished; sank, sank, day by day, and was kept
alive only by the conviction that the letter announcing the award of the
thousand-dollar prize would presently come to him. One night he reached a
place, where, for hunger and dejection, his mind wandered, and he seemed
to be complaining all night to Nora of his woes. When the chill dawn
came, with chittering of little birds on the dirty pavement, and an
agitation of the scrawny willow "pussies," he was not able to lift his
hand to his head. The window before his sight was but "a glimmering
square." He said to himself that the end must be at hand. Yet it was
cruel, cruel, with fame and fortune so near! If only he had some food,
he might summon strength to rally--just for a little while! Impossible
that he should die! And yet without food there was no choice.

Dreaming so of Nora's dinners, thinking how one spoonful of a stew such
as she often compounded would now be his salvation, he became conscious
of the presence of a strong perfume in the room. It was so familiar
that it seemed like a sub-consciousness, yet he found no name for this
friendly odor for a bewildered minute or two. Little by little, however,
it grew upon him, that it was the onion--that fragrant and kindly bulb
which had attained its apotheosis in the cuisine of Nora Finnegan of
sacred memory. He opened his languid eyes, to see if, mayhap, the plant
had not attained some more palpable materialization.

Behold, it was so! Before him, in a brown earthen dish,--a most familiar
dish,--was an onion, pearly white, in placid seas of gravy, smoking and
delectable. With unexpected strength he raised himself, and reached for
the dish, which floated before him in a halo made by its own steam. It
moved toward him, offered a spoon to his hand, and as he ate he heard
about the room the rustle of Nora Finnegan's starched skirts, and now
and then a faint, faint echo of her old-time laugh--such an echo as one
may find of the sea in the heart of a shell.

The noble bulb disappeared little by little before his voracity, and in
contentment greater than virtue can give, he sank back upon his pillow
and slept.

Two hours later the postman knocked at the door, and