her own eyes furtively as she went! As I crossed the room toward him, his chin sank upon his breast, and shaking his old head slowly, he sadly murmured: “From him that _hath not_, shall be taken away even that which he _hath_!” I took his great hand between both of mine, and my lips were just forming the words: “Surely this is but temporary?” when he raised his eyes, and, looking into them, I saw that hope was dead and buried there. I sank upon my knees beside him and said: “Tell me about it, Mr. Brockwell.” He glanced towards his wife’s room, but I persisted gently: “No--I want you to tell me,” for my true sympathy had bridged the years between us, and we were like old friends. In low tones he told his simple, commonplace story. It was the construction he put upon the usual that made it seem unusual, and brief and simple as his story was, it was intensely characteristic. He had started earlier than usual to his night’s work, and was swinging his coffee-pail to the measure of the old hymn, “On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand,” when, turning into a cross-street, he found himself in a crowd of running men and women, and in a few moments was in the midst of all the turmoil and commotion attending a fire, and he soon saw there was cause for the cries of the women and the curses of the men. There had been a nasty accident, and it had come to the first engine approaching the fire. It had been a case of strange driver and a too-short turn, and there, in a terrible heap, lay one horse flat, the other on its knees, and behind them a partly overturned engine. Worst of all, not only were its own services lost, but it was keeping other engines from entering the street, save by a long detour. Now, if ever there was a demand for lifting-power that demand was made right there, and old Brockwell sat down his coffee-pail and began to remove his heavy coat (it was early November then), when he learned quite suddenly that the burning house was a haunt of evil doers, was in fact a place that honest folk turned their faces from as they passed, and for the moment he hesitated, then flinging his coat fiercely off, he shouted: “Help! men, help! That fire _must_ be quenched, to give those people one last chance to save themselves from eternal fire,” and the “old Bull” was with the firemen, working with a will and showing such splendid lifting-power that the crowd cheered the “gray old Hercules” lustily, and among other happenings some “company’s hose” had burst, and many were wetted thoroughly, among them old Brockwell. A church clock had boomed out the hour, and it was time for him to go on to his work, and then he felt how wet he was. He might have gone home and changed his clothing and only have been a little late in getting to the store. There was no one to make comment or to report his action, but he would be late, and he was proud, (the old man’s lips had twisted painfully in uttering that word), proud of his punctuality, and--well--he had gone