with the tears on her cheeks. John, too, felt his eyes wet. But after
half an hour, when there was still no change, he was turning away to go
back to bed, when the widow touched his arm.

'Won't yer give her a kiss, John?' she said, timidly. 'She wor a good
sister to you.'

John, with a tremor, stooped, and clumsily did as he was told--the first
time in his life he had ever done so for Mary Anne. Then, stepping as
noiselessly as he could on his bare feet, he hurried away. A man shares
nothing of that yearning attraction which draws women to a death-bed as
such. Instead, John felt a sudden sickness at his heart. He was thankful
to find himself in his own room again, and thought with dread of having
to go back--for the end. In spite of his still vigorous and stalwart
body he was often plagued with nervous fears and fancies. And it was
years now since he had seen death--he had indeed carefully avoided
seeing it.

Gradually, however, as he sat on the edge of his bed in the summer dark,
the new impression died away, and something habitual took its place--
that shielding, solacing thought, which was in truth all the world to
him, and was going to make up to him for Eliza's death, for getting old,
and the lonesomeness of a man without chick or child. He would have felt
unutterably forlorn and miserable, he would have shrunk trembling from
the shapes of death and pain that seemed to fill the darkness, but for
this fact, this defence, this treasure, that set him apart from his
fellows and gave him this proud sense of superiority, of a good time
coming in spite of all. Instinctively, as he sat on the bed, he pushed
his bare foot backwards till his heel touched a wooden object that stood
underneath. The contact cheered him at once. He ceased to think about