"It was many a long year ago now," was the reply. "The old clergyman’s sister, Miss Alice, she was a good one, she was, and she would have us young chaps up at the big house to learn us summat when the winter nights did come, and the sea was too rough for the fishing. She was always for book learning, was Miss Alice. "’Don’t go and waste your life, lad,’ she would say, ’thinking it’s enough to feed the poor body; ’stead of that, do something for the soul too.’ "It’s dead and buried she’s been this long while now, but she comes back to me plain, she do, my eyes they seem to see her sitting there yet, same as I saw her last, the week before she died. She sent for me, she did, seeing I was one of her old scholars, to tell me she was going home, and to bid me take more thought for heaven. She was always a wonderful kind teacher, was Miss Alice, and her face fair shone when she spoke of God and the golden city. "That evening she was sitting by the fire, and on the wall just behind her was a big picter. Well--that picter it transfixed me wholly; it stuck in my mind, it did, I have it before me now, as plain as a pikestaff." "What was it like?" asked Mrs. Power. "There was an old chap--as it might be me," answered Timothy, "and he was sitting in his big arm-chair--as it might be this ’un, and his Bible by his side, and his vittles on the table--just as I have here. He did look so wonderful tired, that poor man, and he was resting so comfortable in the big chair. His eyes they were shut, and his head it was leaning back, and he was sleeping so quiet and peaceable-like. But you’d never guess what was in that room along of him. No, you’d never guess." "I would rather you told me," said Madelaine, "I’m not good at guessing." "Well," continued Timothy, "along side of the table was a great big skeleton, dressed up in long flowing clothes, and its face looked right kind and gentle, it did, and its hands were stretched up, a-pulling the rope of a great bell that hung in the belfry over the old man’s head. The sun was just sinking, you could see it out of the little window in the back of the picter. Says I to Miss Alice, ’The old chap’ll be finely scared when he wakes up and sees the ghost.’ ’No,’ said she, ’there’s writing here below, and it means something quite different. The name of that picture is "Death as Friend." It means that he’s come to call the poor man away from all his want and all his weariness, and to tell him it’s time to go up to the beautiful city and the light of God.’ He’s no enemy--he’s a right good friend for an old man to have." "So you’re expecting him to come for you, Timothy," said Madelaine gently.