their very coming would be an evidence of faith--and faith alone is
necessary. Think of the joy of helping so many others--it is the fulness
of life. But let us not dream any more, friend Madison."

"Of course," communed Madison, studying the illumined face, "he's
slightly touched in his upper story on the faith stunt; but he's in dead
earnest, and he's got the brotherhood-of-man bug bad. Come to think of
it, Hiram did say something about his 'sight failing,' but I didn't
think it was anything like this. If he's going to go finally blind in,
say, a week, perhaps it would be just as well to postpone the opening
night until he does."

Madison took the slate.

"Stranger things than that have happened," he wrote. "I never heard of
you before, yet I am one of the thousands beyond this little town and I
am here--why not the others?"

The Patriarch shook his head sadly.

"It is but a dream," he wrote.

Madison held the slate in his hands for quite a long time before he
wrote again; his attitude one of sympathetic hesitancy as his eyes
played over the form and face before him, while the Patriarch smiled at
him with gentle, patient resignation. Back in Madison's fertile brain
the germ of an inspiration was developing into fuller life.

"What will you do here alone when you are blind?" he asked--and his face
was disturbed and solicitous as he passed the Patriarch the slate.