congregation with the unmistakable reality of hell-fire. 'You know the
Black Country, my friends,' he had declaimed,' you have seen it, at
night, flaring with a thousand furnaces, in the lurid incandescence of
which myriads of unhappy beings, our fellow-creatures (God forbid!),
snatch a precarious existence--you have seen them silhouetted against
the yellow glare, running hither and thither, as it seemed from afar, in
the very jaws of the awful fire. Have you realised that the burdens with
which they thus run hither and thither are molten iron, iron to which
such a stupendous heat has been applied that it has melted, melted as
though it had been sugar in the sun?--well! returning to hell-fire, let
me tell you this, that in hell they eat this fiery molten metal for
ice-cream!--yes! and are glad to get anything so cool.'

It was thus we talked while Matthew lay dying, for why should we not
talk as we had lived? We both laughed long and heartily over this story;
perhaps it would have amused us less had Matthew not been dying; and
then his kind old nurse brought in our lunch. We had both excellent
appetites, and were far from indifferent to the dainty little meal which
was to be our last but one together. I brought my table as close to
Matthew's pillow as was possible, and he stroked my hand with tenderness
in which there was a touch of gratitude.

'You are not frightened of the bacteria!' he laughed sadly; and then he
told me, with huge amusement, how a friend (and a true, dear friend for
all that) had come to see him a day or two before, and had hung over the
end of the bed to say farewell, daring to approach no nearer, mopping
his fear-perspiring brows with a handkerchief soaked in 'Eucalyptus'!

'He had brought an anticipatory elegy too,' said my friend, 'written
against my burial. I wish you'd read it for me,' and he fidgeted for it