"To Thee I resign my heart! Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit!" reads the priest in broken English; and when the, from its point of view, beautiful prayer has drawn to a solemn close, the man sobs out in genuine, heartfelt conviction with a force of epithet that is habit not irreverence,-- "That is a damn nice prayer! I was always afraid of death, always [with a sob] a coward; but when it comes to the point, that vanishes too!" And the boyish priest purses his check and takes it with him, and leaves his blessing instead, and follows in the wake of the town doctor. "Send Johann to me, dearums; let me get dressed; I'll have a try to die in the sunshine. Get your own little bed carried down to the veranda, and your own little white pillow,--mind, the one you put your head on last,--and lend them to me for this turn." And so the maids take it down, and she stands at the head of the stairs as they carry it, two at the head, and two at the foot; and as she hears their cautious backward steps and the rest at the turn, she fancies it sounds like the bearing out of a coffin. And then he follows slowly out, leaning on his big stick, and his beard divides into patches and shows the purplish skin, and his breathing is labored, but he steps more firmly than he has done for a long time past. And he leans on her frail shoulders, and when they reach the dining-room he calls in the maids and the men who serve him, and bids them charge their glasses; and he thanks them, and says he is sorry for all the trouble he has given them, and shakes hands with each one, and they courtesy and say "Skaal!" a salutation when drinking, and troop out crying. They are mostly women, and women forgive easily and forget everything--to a man! Only the cow-girl stops behind, crouched near the door, crying, "O-ah, o-ah!" And he fills his own glass with champagne and sips it; but nature sets a limit to the alcohol a man may absorb, and he has passed it. He cannot get it down; so he lays his hand on her head and smooths it gently, and says:-- "Your luck, little one, your very good luck! Oh, my poor little one, I am afraid for you! I ought to have--well, it's no good regretting;" and with a last flame of the old fierce fire he cries, "I have had my last drink, and no man shall drink after me;" and he shivers the glass against the wall, and purple shadows, the "skreigh" of another dawn, chase one another over his swollen face, and he leans heavily on her and says faintly, "Lay me down, I am tired!" When they reach the veranda, the leaves of the virgin-vine are strewn in dancing shadow-leaves and fluttering tendrils at their feet. He looks at them and mutters, "Shadows--only shadows!" Suddenly he searches her face intently and asks, "Is there no hope, little one,--none?" He reads the answer in her wistful eyes. "When? Don't you be afraid to tell me,--when did he say?" "Inside twenty-four hours."