John Dale was seventy-five years or more, but worked his niggard hillside all the day, and seldom came to town. His aged wife was kind; the flowers of her life she gave away, but none could glance upon the garden. She seemed to know when neighbors were ill; hers was the dignity of being indispensable. Many the mother of that region who, standing beneath some cloud, thanked God as this slender, white-haired soul with star shine in her face, hurried over the fields with an old volume pasted full of quaint remedies. She made a call of another kind--just once--when the "Hitchenses" brought the first organ to "Cold Friday." She remained only long enough to go straight to the cabinet, which the assembled neighbors regarded with distant awe, and play several pieces "without the book." On her leaving with the same quiet indifference, Mrs. Ephraim Fivecoats peered owlishly toward Mrs. Rome Lukens and rendered the following upon her favorite instrument: "Well! if that woman ever gits the fever an' gits deliriums, I want to be round, handy like. I'll swan there'll be more interestin' things told than we've heerd in our born days--that woman is allus thinkin'!" In this final respect, the judgment of the Lady of the House of Fivecoats was sound. How gallant the mind is! If the past be sad, it mingles with Diversion's multitude till Sadness is lost; if the present be unhappy, it has a magic thrift of joys, and Unhappiness is hushed by Memory's laughter; if both past and present have a grief, it seeks amid its scanty store for some event, for instance, whose recurrence brings some brightness; to greet this it sends affectionate anticipations--and were its quiver empty, it would battle still some way! So the wife of Dale looked forward to Doctor Johnston's visits, yet there were so many doors between her silence and the world, she did not turn as he entered one eventful day. Doctors are Nature's confessors, and down the memory of this one wandered a camel of sympathy upon which the sick had heaped their secret woes for years, though one added naught to the burden. It was the tale he wished to hear, and when some fugitive phrase promised revelation, he folded the powders slowly; but when it ended in a sigh, he strapped up bottles and expectations and went away, reflecting how poor the world where one might hear all things save those which interested. But Time is a patient locksmith to whom all doors swing open. "I always sit by this window," she began as he removed the fever thermometer; "I've looked so long, I see nothing in a way--and at night I always put the light here. If he should come in the dark I want him to see--here is a letter." The Doctor read and returned it with a look of infinite pity. "I had a dream last night; I may be superstitious or it may be the fever--but it was so real. I saw it all; it was just like my prayer. I believe in God, you know." She smiled in half reproach. "Yes, in spite of all.