He was right. The day wore on without any apparent change until about the going down of the sun, when the old man moved a little. They had once or twice dropped a few drops of wine between his lips, but this was the first symptom of any break in the heavy stupor which had held him so long in its death-like embrace. His respiration quickened, and became audible. He muttered one or two incoherent sentences, then a tremor passed over his features, and he opened his eyes. Helen, whom her father had vainly endeavored during the afternoon to persuade into going home, stood with her head turned away; and the colonel, too intent upon watching the dying man, did not notice Safford, from whose face, at the first struggle in the inanimate form, every particle of color fled, and who, trembling violently all over, clutched the bed for support. The old man for a moment looked about the room blankly, as if a haze obscured his vision. Raising himself slowly on his elbow, his face lighted up, and he opened his lips to speak, but as suddenly the light faded out, his features quivered pitiably, and he sank down, saying, brokenly, in an accent of despair,— “Dead—she is dead! She is dead!” Then, starting up wildly, he cried out,— “Do not look at me like that, Hetty; you will kill me! It was not for the likes o’ me to have married you. Now you are so white an’ thin, an’, Hetty, when I took ye to the church, yer cheeks were redder nor the summer rose. Oh, forgive me, Hetty—forgive me!” A terrible struggle in his throat compelled him to pause for a moment, then he went on with rapid utterance, and an entreaty whose distress could hardly find expression in words:— “No, no, Hetty, do not ye call the little one that; I can not bar it!—not that, not my name! I swear to ye, he shall not take after the likes of his father—he must not be like me! Hetty, I swear to ye, if I live, he shall never hear a low word, nor touch a drop o’ whisky! He shall have learnin’, an’ be a gentleman—a fine gentleman. Hetty, I’ve been a worthless dog—a brute, a beast! I can’t hardly look at ye now—I darn’t, thar’ is sich a shinin’ light about yer face—but hear me, Hetty, I swear to ye, the little one, even if ye will call him George Safford, shall grow up to be a hon—Hetty, you are so still! O Hetty!—dead! she is dead—dead!” Both the colonel and Helen turned with astonishment to young Safford when the old man, in his delirium, had spoken his name; but the latter, unconscious of their surprise, with a single cry, sprang forward, and supported the exhausted figure in his arms as it sank back. “Father—my father!” The words broke from his lips in a voice painfully choked by emotion. There was another severe struggle for breath, then, with renewed strength, the old man raised himself into a sitting posture, and, looking round quickly, began in a hurried manner, fumbling about with his hands,—