declared that, though the patient’s blood was running like a river in flood, yet there was nothing very particular the matter, and that a day or two’s quiet would make him all right. Mrs. Ford, in her night-cap, remained by the newly lighted fire in Mr. Trevor’s room to take care of him, but the rest were all sent back to bed, and when the breakfast-hour arrived the patient pronounced himself as well as ever. He got up at his usual hour, and would not even allow that, as Mrs. Ford suggested, he felt “shaky.” “Not a bit shaky,” he declared, putting out one shrunken shank to show how steadily he stood on the other; “but I thought my time was come,” he said. “I’ll allow I thought I had reached it, after looking for it so long. It was a queer feeling. I am just as well pleased to put it off a bit, though it must come soon.” “That is true,” Ford said, shaking his head; “we must all die; but the youngest may go off before the oldest, as happens every day.” These were the words that little Jock heard as they came into the drawing-room, the old man leaning on the arm of the other. Where was the youngest to go off to? He understood vaguely, and a momentary thrill ran through his little veins. Was it he that might “go” before his father? it was a thing which seemed to lie between the eldest and the youngest Jock’s mind was full of the plague and all its horrible details, and the wonder and mystery of thus going “off” chimed in with this gloomy yet fascinating study; the recollection of the bell tinkling through the streets, the dead-cart stopping at the door, scared yet excited him. But there was no plague, no dead-cart, no tinkling bell at Farafield. After awhile the impression died out of the child’s mind, but scarcely so quickly as it did out of the mind of his old father, who already chuckled to himself over the fright he had given the house. Mr. Trevor did justice to the people who surrounded him. “When it really comes they will be sorry,” he said; “but it was a disappointment.” He liked to think he had disappointed them; even in getting better, a man can not but feel that his own superior sense and strength of character have something to do with it. Another man would not have rallied, would have been capable of dying perhaps, and cutting short all the interest of his story; but not John Trevor, who knew better what he was about.