"There are very few," replied Guly, encouragingly, "who can strike the balance-sheet of life, and be content. Your reflections are, no doubt, the natural effect of the sad season we have passed through, and of your desolate loneliness." Mr. Delancey leaned forward, and held his hand on Guly's arm, impressively:-- "Young man, while you are yet young, let me warn you to beware of a purposeless life; have an aim, have a mark, struggle for it, grasp at it, and though you may never reach it, you will die happier." The merchant relapsed again into silence, and Guly turned to a window, to note the fury of a wild storm which was raging without. Suddenly there came a blaze of light, instantly followed by a loud and crashing peal of thunder. "How fearful! that bolt must have passed near, or struck us," said Guly, turning toward the merchant. There came no answer, and the boy went up, and laid his hand upon the old man's shoulder. He was sitting bolt upright in his chair, with his stony eyes fixed upon vacancy, as he was so often wont to sit. Guly lifted one of the bony hands in his, but it dropped heavily, lifelessly, back upon the desk. Mr. Delancey was dead! The fearful lightning had borne him across life's river, without pain and without warning. CHAPTER XLII. "Man wants but little here below." Mr. Delancey's funeral was scarcely over, before Guly received a message, stating that his friend the dwarf, was very ill, and desired to see him. The ragged boy, who brought the message, offered to act as guide to the cripple's hovel, remarking, that Richard said Monsieur would give him a dime for so doing. The money was readily bestowed, and in a few minutes Guly stood by the bedside of his wretched friend. Everything about the place indicated poverty, destitution, and filth, and the dwarf lay curled up, in the last stages of cholera, beneath the few rags which served him for a covering. It was evident no physician had been called, and it was now too late for one to do any good. "Hih, hih, Monsieur," squeaked the poor old man; "come, at last, eh? Look a long time for you; very cold, Monsieur, very." Guly took the cramped and chilling hands in his, and strove to warm them there. "Hih, hih, Monsieur; poor little dwarf's time's come at last. Can't talk much, Monsieur; but got very much to say." "Don't exert yourself much, Richard." "Only one little. I must improve my time. Ugh! Monsieur; that cramp was very dreadful!" A moment of silence ensued, broken only by the rattling respiration of the expiring dwarf. "Underneath this bed, Monsieur, and underneath the broad plank in the floor--when I am gone, Monsieur, look, and you will find one strong box. It holds a little money--only a little--which I have got for little odd jobs and begging. After I am under the ground, that is yours. You are the only one ever really kind to poor Richard, and now that he's going away for ever, he wants you to remember him kindly."