In a cot near a window, where the sunlight flashed across the cover, a boy of three or four years lay with a strap beneath his small pink wrapper, fastening him to a board of wood. At the head of the bed was printed the name, and below: "Pott's disease of the spine. Received, October, 1896; discharged ..." As he saw the priest he stretched out his pallid little hands with a gurgle of welcome, merriment overflowing his eyes. Father Algarcife took the hands in his and sat down beside the cot. Since entering the room he seemed to have caught something of the infant stoicism surrounding him, for his face had lost its strained pallor and the lines about his mouth had softened. "So it is a good day," he said. "The little man is better. He has been on the roof-garden." The child laughed. "It ith a good day," he made answer. "There ith the woof-garden and there ith ithe-cream." "And which is the best?" "Bofe," said the child. "That's right, little soldier; and what did you do in the garden?" The child clapped his hands. "I played," he responded; "an' I'm goin' to play ball on my legs when I mend." One of the nurses came and stood for a moment at the foot of the bed. "He has learned a hymn for you," she said. "He is teaching the other children to sing--aren't you, baby?" "Yeth." "And you'll sing for the father?" The child's mouth quivered with pleasure and his eyes gleamed. Then his gay little voice rang out in a shrill treble: "Yeth, Jesuth lovths me, Yeth, Jesuth lovths me, Yeth, Jesuth lovths me, The Bible tells me so." He ended with a triumphant little gasp and lay smiling at the sunshine. A quarter of an hour later Father Algarcife returned to the street. It was Friday, and at two o'clock he was to be in the sacristy, where it was his custom to receive the members of his parish. It was the most irksome of his duties, and he fulfilled it with a repugnance that had not lessened with time. Now it represented even a greater strain than usual. He had been soothed by his visit to the hospital, and he dreaded the friction of the next few hours--the useless advice delivered, the trivialities responded to, the endless details of fashionable foibles that would be heard. He wondered, resentfully, if there were not some means by which this office might be abolished or delivered into the hands of an assistant. Then his eyes shot humor as he imagined Miss Vernish, Mrs. Ryder, or a dozen others consenting to receive spiritual instruction from a lesser priest with a snub-nose. As he passed a book-shop in Union Square, a man reading the posters upon the outside attracted his notice. "Oh, I say, Mr. Algarcife!" He stopped abruptly, recognized the speaker, and nodded. The other went on with a heated rush of words. "Those are fine things of yours, those sermons. I congratulate you." "Thank you." "Yes, they are fine. But, I say, you got the better of the _Scientific Weekly_ writer. It was good."