Seven Mysterious Sisters--and fall to speculating over them? How old are
they? Who dwelt in them? And the old German would say that perhaps the
souls we loved lived in them; there, in that little twinkling point was
perhaps the little girl whose stockings he had carried home; and the
children would look up at it lovingly, and call it "Uncle Otto's star."
Then they would fall to deeper speculations--of the times and seasons
wherein the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll, and the stars
shall fall as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, and there shall be time
no longer: "When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all His holy
angels with Him." In lower and lower tones they would talk, till at last
they fell into whispers; then they would wish good night softly, and walk
home hushed and quiet.

Tonight, when Lyndall looked in, Waldo sat before the fire watching a pot
which simmered there, with his slate and pencil in his hand; his father sat
at the table buried in the columns of a three-weeks-old newspaper; and the
stranger lay stretched on the bed in the corner, fast asleep, his mouth
open, his great limbs stretched out loosely, betokening much weariness.
The girl put the rations down upon the table, snuffed the candle, and stood
looking at the figure on the bed.

"Uncle Otto," she said presently, laying her hand down on the newspaper,
and causing the old German to look up over his glasses, "how long did that
man say he had been walking?"

"Since this morning, poor fellow! A gentleman--not accustomed to walking--
horse died--poor fellow!" said the German, pushing out his lip and glancing
commiseratingly over his spectacles in the direction of the bed where the
stranger lay, with his flabby double chin, and broken boots through which
the flesh shone.