Madison held the slate in his hands for quite a long time before he wrote again; his attitude one of sympathetic hesitancy as his eyes played over the form and face before him, while the Patriarch smiled at him with gentle, patient resignation. Back in Madison's fertile brain the germ of an inspiration was developing into fuller life. "What will you do here alone when you are blind?" he asked--and his face was disturbed and solicitous as he passed the Patriarch the slate. "I need very little," the Patriarch wrote back. "You must not worry about me. My garden supplies nearly all my wants, and there are many in the village, I am sure, who will help me with that when the snow is gone." "I am quite certain of that," Madison's pencil agreed. "But here in the house you cannot be alone--there are so many things to do, little things that I am sure you have not thought of--some one must cook for you, for instance. You will need a woman's hand here--have you no one, no relative that you can call upon?" The Patriarch lowered the slate from his eyes, shook his head a little pathetically, and began to write. "I do not think they would have cared to come, even if they were still alive; but they are all gone many years ago--except perhaps a grand-niece, and I do not know what has become of her." "Why, that's just the thing," wrote Madison. "Suppose we try to find her?" Again the Patriarch shook his head. "I am afraid that would be impossible. I do not even know that she is alive. I know only of her birth, and that is twenty years ago." "Even that is not hopeless," wrote Madison optimistically, and his face as he looked at the Patriarch was seriously thoughtful. "Where was she born?" "New York," the Patriarch answered. "And I never half appreciated the old town nor the fulness thereof until I came to Needley!" said Madison plaintively to the toe of his boot, while his hand scrawled the inquiry: "What is her name?" "Vail," wrote the Patriarch. "That was her father's name. She is my grand-niece on her mother's side. I do not know what they christened her." Madison once more, apparently deep in thought, sought refuge at the fireplace, his hands plunged in his pockets, his shoulders drawn a little forward, his back to the Patriarch. "Fiction," he assured a crack in the cement between two stones, "was never, never like this. It seems to me that I remember the occurrence. It had grown a little dim with the lapse of time, it is true; but now that I recall it, it comes back with remarkable clearness. I am quite sure they christened her--Helena. Helena Vail! Now isn't that a perfectly lovely name for a novel! And she'll be so good to the dear old chap too--washing and ironing and cooking for him--and stealing out into the woodshed for a drag on her cigarette--_not_. No, my dear, not even that--this is serious business." He turned, came back to his chair, picked up the slate, and wrote: