the air, for the effect of each bark, and consciously enjoying the
tuneful echo. A stern-featured, middle-aged woman came out quickly,
almost as if annoyed at the interruption, but on seeing who it was
she dropped a quick courtsey, and spoke sharply to the dog.

Arthur went forward, holding out his hand.

"We were so sorry to hear at the house," he said, "that there was
trouble here. I did not learn quite clearly what it was, but I
thought I would ride over to see if there was anything I could do."

Arthur knew quite enough of the poor to be sure that it was always
best to plunge straight into the subject in hand, be it never so
grim or painful. Life has no veneering for them; they look hard
realities in the face and meet them as they can. They are the true
philosophers, and their straightforwardness about grief and disease
is not callousness; it is directness, and generally means as much,
if not more, feeling than the hysterical wailings of more cultivated
emotion, more organized nerves.

"Yes, sir," she said to me, with that strange dignity of language
that trouble gives to the poor, just raising her apron to her eyes,
"it's my master, sir—Mr. Keighley, sir. The doctor has given him
up, and he's only waiting to die. It don't give him much pain, his
complaint; and it leaves his head terrible clear. But he's fearful
afraid to die, sir; and that's where it is.

"Not that he's not lived a good life; been to church and paid his
rent and tithe reg'lar, been sober and industrious and good to his
people; but I think, sir," she said, "that there's one kind of