loss?" implored the boy, looking up.

"The money? O, well, some day when you are a rich man, you can pay me for
the cow!" laughed the doctor, taking up the reins. "In the meantime, make a
good, trustworthy, honest man of yourself, no matter whether you get rich
or not, and keep your 'thinking cap' on a little better."

"You had better eat some supper," said a voice in the doorway a little
later, as Mrs. Layton came noiselessly to the barn, and surprised the boy
kneeling on the hay in the horse's stall adjoining the one where Brindle
lay groaning, his face buried in his arms, which were flung out over the
manger.

The lad scrambled to his feet in deep confusion.

"O, thank you, Mrs. Layton, but I cannot eat a bite!" he protested. "It is
ever so good of you to think of me, but I cannot eat anything."

"You must," said the doctor's wife, firmly. "Come outside and wash in the
trough if you do not want to leave Brindle. You can sit near by and watch
her, if you think you must, though it will not do a particle of good, for
she is bound to die anyway. What were you doing in there on your
knees--praying?"

The woman's voice softened perceptibly as the question passed her lips, and
she looked half-pityingly into the pale, haggard young face, thinking of
little Ted's, and wondering how it would have looked at thirteen if he had
done this thing.

"Yes," muttered Harry, plunging his hands into the water of the trough, and