Mr. Dicki’son drew his breath sharply, as if some one had struck him in the face, but with an effort he pulled himself together and answered her gently: "Nay, wife--Emily, don’t say that. The little lass held up until she couldn’t hold up no longer. I’ll go and quiet Mirry. She’s always quiet enough with me. Keep yourself still, and I’ll stop with the bairn until she’s asleep"; and then he bent and kissed her forehead, and passed softly out of the room, only whispering, "Not one word" to the nurse as he passed her. But, dear Heaven! how that man’s heart ached as he sat soothing his little fever-flushed child into quietness! I said but now that he drew his breath sharply as if some one had struck him in the face. Alas! it was worse than that, for the wife of his bosom, the mother of his children, had struck him, stabbed him, to the lowest depths of his heart by her querulous complaint against the child who had gone from him only a few hours before, on whose little white, plain face he had just looked for the last time, and on which his scalding tears had fallen, for he knew that, plain, and dull, and unobtrusive as she had always been--the butt of her sister’s sharp tongue, the trial of his wife’s whole existence--he knew that with the closing of the heavy eyes the brightest light of his life had gone out. And little Mirry, wrapped in a blanket, lay upon his breast soothed into slumber. Did something fall from his eyes upon her face, that she started and looked up at him? She must have mistaken the one plain face for the other, for she put up her little hot hand and stroked his cheek. "You tum back, Ada ’Liz’bet’?" she murmured, as she sank off to sleep again; "Mirry did want you _so_ bad-a-ly." The sick child’s tender words took away half the bitterness of the sting which his wife had thrust into his heart, and his whole soul seemed to overflow with a great gush of love as he swayed her gently to and fro. _She_ had loved the unattractive face, and missed it bitterly; _she_ had wearied for the rare, patient smile and the slow, gentle voice, and, to Mr. Dicki’son’s dull mind, the child’s craving had bound Ada Elizabeth’s heavy brows with a crown of pure gold, with the truest proof that "affection never was wasted." [Illustration: "You tum back, Ada ’Liz’bet’?" she murmured.] Halt! "Halt! Who goes there?" cried a man’s voice through the thick gloom of the dark night. There was no answer save silence; and, after listening for a moment, Private Flinders turned, and began to tramp once more along the ten paces which extended from his sentry-box. "I could have sworn I heard a footstep," he said to himself. "It’s curious how one’s ears deceive one on a night like this."