excited. His lips twitched. His hands trembled. At the end he
sank on his knees, close by the bed, and looked into the countenance
of the sick man, searching it as a forester searches in the undergrowth
for a lost trail. Then his eyes lighted up as he found it.

"My son," said he, clasping the old fiddler's hand in his own, "you
are Jacques Dellaire. And I--do you know me now?--I am Baptiste
Lacombe. See those two scars upon my neck. But it was not death.
You have not murdered. You have given the stroke that changed my
heart. Your sin is forgiven--AND MINE ALSO--by the mercy of God!"

The round clock ticked louder and louder. A level ray from the
setting sun--red gold--came in through the dusty window, and lay
across the clasped hands on the bed. A white-throated sparrow, the
first of the season, on his way to the woods beyond the St.
Lawrence, whistled so clearly and tenderly that it seemed as if he
were repeating to these two gray-haired exiles the name of their
homeland. "sweet--sweet--Canada, Canada, Canada!" But there was a
sweeter sound than that in the quiet room.

It was the sound of the prayer which begins, in every language
spoken by men, with the name of that Unseen One who rules over
life's chances, and pities its discords, and tunes it back again
into harmony. Yes, this prayer of the little children who are only
learning how to play the first notes of life's music, turns to the
great Master musician who knows it all and who loves to bring a
melody out of every instrument that He has made; and it seems to lay
the soul in His hands to play upon as He will, while it calls Him,
OUR FATHER!