As David and Elizabeth came to the workshop door they were startled by a rush and flutter of black feathers as Dick came flying out in great excitement. Yet, within, the place seemed more peaceful than ever. Mr. Reynolds had ceased his work and was sitting at the table, a place once littered inches deep with papers and tools, but now swept bare and clean. His hands lay idly before him and he sat staring, although it seemed he saw only the blank wall opposite. Again it struck Betsey how unnatural was the silence when those busy, familiar wheels stood still. He looked up at them strangely when they came in and said almost the same words he had spoken before, his voice steady but unnaturally loud. “It is through the true dreams that the world goes forward.” Then after a moment’s pause he added— “And I have always said that a man could know a true dream from a false one, could be sure when he was working for a great good and not for a play-thing and a failure. But I was wrong—all wrong! Those wheels shall never turn again.” His head dropped suddenly on his arm and rested upon the table. Then his whole body slipped forward and would have fallen had not David caught him. CHAPTER X THE TOY CUPBOARD There could be no doubt that Mr. Reynolds was very ill. A white-uniformed nurse was installed at the cottage, the doctor came daily, looking ever graver and graver, while there were worried wrinkles in Miss Miranda’s forehead and she began to look very thin and white. Mrs. Bassett, the farmer’s wife, coming over to pay her promised visit and finding her dear friend in such trouble, arranged hastily that some one else should take care of her own household and installed herself in the kitchen so that Miss Miranda should be free to wait upon her father. The old man lay, for the greater part of the time, in a dull stupor, waking only now and again to partial consciousness. Elizabeth and David gave all the help that they could, but it seemed that there was little to be done. Many nights Betsey spent at the cottage when she guessed that Miss Miranda felt lonely and depressed, although her friend’s cheerful spirit would never admit failing courage. “He will be better to-morrow,” she would keep saying when it was found impossible to declare that he was better to-day.