"Why, daddy read about it one night in the Bible. It was a city, he said--aw, shucks! I'd rather it was the country. But it had gold streets, and was all pearls and diamonds and things. Say! find it, will you?" So the next reading was of the New Jerusalem, the city that had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb was the light thereof. "For there shall be no night there." When John McIntyre came to those words his voice broke, and he closed the Book quickly, as though it hurt him. He had not shed a tear since that day when he and Mary laid their last child in the grave; and a far deeper sorrow had come upon him since; but something shone in his eyes now as he turned his back to the light. For some minutes Tim lay staring into the fire, and wondering. It was a wild winter night, and the storm came wailing across the Drowned Lands, and shook the old door of the little cabin. But its sorrow-laden notes, that always found an echo in the winter of John McIntyre's lonely heart, spoke to him of something new and wonderful--of that other land where there would be "no more death, neither sorrow nor crying." "It must be an awful pretty place," Tim ventured at last, rather wistfully. "Say!"--he looked up eagerly--"d'ye s'pose it 'ud be nicer'n Nova Scotia?" His companion did not answer, and he went on: "Our mother's there, 'cause she was good; but if our father's dead, he ain't." John McIntyre looked down at the child, and Tim nodded his head emphatically. "Oh, but I know he ain't," he said with firm conviction. "He was so awful bad. Don't you mind I told you? He cheated a lot of other folks, an' got all their money, an' then he ran away, for fear they'd put him in jail. The last time I seen him he come to give ole Mother Cummins money for keepin' us. She was drunk that night, and I sneaked out o' bed an' listened, an' he didn't give her 'nough, an' she yelled at him, an' she says, 'Joseph Symonds, you're a----' Wha--what's the matter?" John McIntyre had leaned forward in his chair and was glaring at the boy. "That name!" he cried. "What was your father's name?" "Symonds--Joseph Symonds," repeated the child, staring. "That's our name, too, an' Joey was called after him." "Was Fair Hill the place you were born in?" "Yes. How did you know? It was right beside the ocean----" He paused. The look in John McIntyre's face alarmed him. "Ye--ye ain't goin' to get sick again, are ye?" He arose and came nearer, and the man drew back, with a gesture of loathing. "Your--father--was Joseph Symonds!" he repeated, dazed. Tim had a fashion, when he was very much interested in anything his friend was saying, of seizing a button of the man's coat and twisting it. He took hold of it now, and turned it around and around, gazing at him wonderingly. "Yes; did ye know him?" he asked, innocently eager.