and now she'll be bate to death, and who's to bear the blame if not ye that might have stopped it? Do ye think, Tim Calligan,' sez he, raising his voice so the blessed angels come a-looking over the holy walls of Heaven to see what would be the matter,--by the same token that the little gold hoops floating round their heads kept clashing together and sounding like sleigh-bells, their heads was that close together on top of the wall, and all their eyes looking at me that sorrowful like it nigh broke my heart,--'do ye think,' sez he, 'you're sleeping in holy ground when the price of the grave your worthless old carcass is in was the life of this wee bit child?' And all the angels shook their heads, and looked at me that reproachful the heart in me got so big it would have killed me with its swelling only saving that I was dead already, not to say being dead twice; and I fell to sobbing and praying to St. Peter for mercy,--and the first thing I knew I woke up in bed, praise be to the handiworks of God! made alive again, this being the third time, counting the time I was first born." Tim's tale was long, and it was interrupted by frequent intervals of rest made necessary by his weakness. When he ended, the pale forecast of dawn shone into the squalid room. Louizy was crying softly, in the suppressed fashion of folk unaccustomed to give full vent even to grief. Tim lay quiet for a long time. At last he aroused himself to feel beneath the mattress, and to bring to light a dirty bag of denim. This he pressed into the hand of his nurse. "It'll take you both," he murmured feebly. "Blessings go with ye, and the saints be good to the soul of Tim Calligan, coming up at the Day of Judgment like a scared woodchuck out of unblessed ground!" III Tim failed rapidly. The excitement of his dream and the moral struggle through which he had passed had worn upon his enfeebled powers. On the second day after his seizure the priest came from Tiverton to administer the last rites. When this was over, Tim lay quiet, hardly seeming alive. Thus he was when Springer, who drove over late in the afternoon, came in to see him. "Tim," Springer said, "Mrs. Dooling has told me what you have done. The ground you lie in will make little difference to a man that would do a thing so white as that." "Thank you kindly," Tim answered, in the shadow of a voice. "Father O'Connor's promised to bless my grave. It's not the same as being at Tiverton where the ground would be soaked with the blessing all round, but leastways St. Peter 'll not be after flinging it in my face that the blood of the child's on me." The Overseer regarded him with such tenderness as did not often shine within the doors of the poor-farm. "Tim," he said, leaning forward as if he were half ashamed of his good impulse, "don't worry any more. I'll pay for your grave at Tiverton, and see that you are put in it."