Anxious, economical old body, from the early fall he began to watch over the welfare of our house. We, sleeping in it, knew no sooner of a loosened shutter than did “Old John,” who immediately began a still-hunt for the offender. But his drollest habit, I think, was the making of a slow, close search over all the grounds, and even out into the road, after every storm, seeking for possible slates torn from the roof. On one of my homecomings from a long season he met me with a small bill for mending the roof, and he anxiously explained that he did it, he knew, without orders, but if he hadn’t, it would have got worse and made a leak and would have ruined thousands of dollars’ worth of beautiful frocks up there! Please bear in mind that the figures mentioned are “Old John’s,” not mine. I assured him it was all right. I thought his face would clear, but no, not yet. He carefully produced a large, flat package from under his table, and when the package was gravely opened, there lay a collection of broken slates. John had saved them all as his witnesses, and he would take up the best of them and explain: “If it had broken this way, instead of that way, it might have been replaced, but as it was, do you think now, ma’am, that I could have done any different?” The second assurance satisfied him, and his face resumed its usual contented look. So we all moved our wonted ways until that lovely spring day, when a pale-faced messenger ran up to the house to say, “Oh, madam! Old John has had a fall, and he’s hurt bad!” I thrust my feet into a pair of bed-room slippers, being myself ill at the time, flung a loose gown about me, and, with my mother, hurried with all possible speed down to the stable. He was stretched out--not sitting--in a horribly unnatural position on a chair. His face was ghastly, his eyes dim, his pulse almost unfindable. I gave him a stimulant, praying inwardly that I might not be doing wrong. I learned from the others that he had washed the pony phaeton, and was pushing it backward to its place when he had slipped and fallen heavily, face forward, on those cruel cobblestones. I was convinced he was seriously injured, and leaving my mother attending to his wants and directing the men how to get him to his room, I hurried back to the house, wishing at every step that my husband would come, and hastily telephoned for the doctor. When the doctor and Mr. H---- were both on the spot and I could retire to the background, I was surprised at my feeling of profound depression. “Old John” had had two falls far and away worse than this one, but that look on his face, it was neither age nor pain--though both were there--that so impressed me. It was a look of hopeless finality, and accepting it as a warning, I hastened to inquire if John would see a priest, and lo! as I had thought, the old faith was warm within him, since he answered readily that he’d see the priest, if we would be so kind.