It seemed sometimes, as if you could almost see a white, shadowy figure, inside the gate, a lookin' out, and watchin' with her arms reached out; and then it would all melt into the light again, as clouds will. It wus the beautifulest sunset I had seen, that year, by far. And we s'pose, from what we could learn afterwards, that the boy, too, was attracted by that wonderful glory in the west, and strolled out to the orchard to look at it. It wus a favorite place with him, anyway. And there wus a certain tree that he loved to lay under. A sick-no-further apple. It wus the very tree I found him under that day in the spring, a lookin' up into the sky, a watchin' for the City to come down from heaven. You could see a good ways from there off into the west, and out over the lake. And the sunset must have looked beautiful from there, anyway. Wall, my poor companion Josiah wus all rousted up in his mind about the babe, and he never thought of the boy till it was half-past nine; and then he hurried off to find him, skairt, but s'posen he was up on his bed with his clothes on, or asleep on the lounges, or carpets, or somewhere. [Illustration: PAUL LOOKING AT THE SUNSET.] But he couldn't find him: he hunted all over the house, and out in the barn, and the door-yard, and the street; and then he rousted up Mr. Gowdey's folks, our nearest neighbors, to see if they could help find him. Wall, Miss Gowdey, when she wus a bringin' in her clothes,--it was Monday night,--she had seen him out in the orchard under the sick-no-further tree. And there they found him, fast asleep--where they s'pose he had fell asleep unexpected to himself. It wus then almost eleven o'clock, and he was wet with dew: the dew was heavy that night. And when they rousted him up, he was so hoarse he couldn't speak. And before mornin' he was in a high fever. They sent for me and the doctor at daybreak. Little Samantha Joe wus better: it only proved to be a hard cold that ailed her. But the boy had the scarlet-fever, so the doctor said. And he grew worse fast. He didn't know me at all when I got home, but wus a talkin' fast about his mamma Cicely; and he asked me “If the gate had swung down, for him to go through into the City, and if his mamma was inside, reachin' out her arms to him?” And then he would get things all mixed up, and talk about things he had heard of, and things he hadn't heard of. And then he would talk about how bright it was inside the gate, and how he see it from the orchard. And so we knew he had been attracted out by the bright light in the west. And then he would talk about the strangest things. His little tongue couldn't be still a minute; but it never could, for that matter. Till along about the middle of the afternoon he become quiet, and grew so white and still that I knew before the doctor told me, that we couldn't keep the boy.