“More of Marsden’s stuff,” he said, with a low laugh; and his own voice sounded far off to him, as he lay looking at that strange little picture--a distant view of the two women against the light, with the sky and the window behind; somebody’s wife and daughter--his own--his very Rose, and she who had been his companion since his youth. Strange that he should look at them so quietly, almost with an amused sense of novelty, without any tragic feeling or even pain to speak of, in the thought that he was going away shortly and would see them no more. He fell to thinking of a thousand things as he lay there watching them, yet not watching them. Not the things, perhaps, that a dying man ought to think of; little nothings, chance words that he had forgotten for years, lines of poetry, somehow connected with his present condition, though he did not remember the links of connection. “The casement slowly grows, a glittering square,” he said to himself, and made an effort to think whence the line came, and why it should have at this moment thrust itself into his mind. Then he fell altogether into a poetic mood, and one disconnected line followed another into his mind, giving him a vague sense of melancholy pleasure. He said one or two of them aloud, calling the attention of his nurses--but it was not to them he was speaking. Finally, his mind centred on one which first of all seemed to strike him for its melody alone:-- For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing, anxious being e’er resigned, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind? He said this aloud once or twice over. “‘To dumb forgetfulness a prey!’ that is not my feeling--not my feeling; the rest is very true. Gray does not get half justice nowadays. How it satisfies the ear, flowing round and soft! ‘To dumb forgetfulness!’ now I wonder what he meant by that?” “You are better, papa,” said Rose, softly. Her mother stayed behind, not able to speak; but the girl, in her simplicity, thought the poetry “a good sign.” “No, Rose. ‘Dumb forgetfulness,’--it is not that, child; that is not what one fears; to be sure there is a coldness and blackness that might chime in with the words. But the rest is true, ‘the warm precincts of the cheerful day;’ warm is a living word altogether; it is not warm out here.” “I will put the quilt on the bed,” said wistful Rose, thinking he complained of cold. “No,” he said, roused, with a gentle laugh; “the quilt will do nothing for me; I am not cold--not yet; I suppose I shall be presently. Is your mother there? My dear, help me with your experience. I dislike cold so much; does one feel it creeping up before one dies?” “Oh, Herbert, dearest!” said his wife, heart-broken. What could she answer to such a question?