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28 THE
The Family
TRUE AND UNTRUE.
By F. E. Townsley.
He was a dog,
But he stayed at home
And guarded the family night and
dnv
He was a dog.
That didn't roam.
He lay on the porch or chased the
stray?
The tramp, the burglar, the hen
away;
For a dog's true heart for that
household beat,
At morning and evening, in cold
and heat,
He was a dog,
He was a man.
And didn't stay
To cherish nis wife and his children
fair.
He was a man.
His heart grew callous, its love
beats rare. i
He thought of himself at the Hnse
of day
And, cigar in his Angers, hurried
away
To the club, the lodge, the store,
the show,
But he had a right to go, you know,
He was a man.
THE LOVE CURE.
The windows of the great house were
darkened, the door bell muffled, and the
pavement in front strewn with rushes,
while the physician's carriage waited long
outside.
In the hushed chamber Mrs. Allison
lay still with closed eyes. Doctor and
nurse bent over her in anxious ministration,
but the expression of the wan features
never altered, and, beyond a faint
monosyllable elicited with difficulty in
reply to a question, no words came from
the pallid lips. The watchers exchanged
significant glances.
"I will be back in an hour," said the
doctor, glancing at his watch.
As he stepped into the hall a waiting
figure came forward to meet him.
"How is she now, doctor?"
The doctor shook his head.
"Shall we go into the next room, Mr.
Allison?" said he. "I will speak with freedom
there."
The two men sat down facing eacn
other, Mr. Allison grasping the arms of
the chair as if to steady himself. The
lines of his strong, masterful face were
drawn, and drops stood on his forehead.
"May I venture to ask you a delicate
question, Mr. Allison?" said the physician.
"Can it be that some secret grief
or anxiety is preying upon your wife s
mind?"
"Secret grief?anxiety? Certainly not!
my dear doctor, how could you imagine
such a thing?"
"I beg pardon Mr. Allison. It occurred
to me only as the remotest possibility.
The facts of the case are these: The
force of Mrs. Allison's disease is broken,
and she is absolutely without fever. Yet
she shows no sign of rallying. On the
\
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SOUTI
contrary, she constantly grows weaker.
It is impossible to arouse her. There
seems to be not only no physical response
to the remedies employed, but she apparently
lacks even the slightest interest
in anything, including her recovery. Unless
this condition be speedily changed
?which appears altogether utilikely?I
can no longer offer any hope. The patient
is evidently drifting away from us,
while we stand powerless to hold her
back."
Mr. Allison groaned aloud and laid his
face in his hands. The physician rose,
and after a few sympathetic expressions,
left him alone.
Meanwhile in the sicK room the nurse
hncio/1 * ? *
v. ucimii nuu conscientious care
about her charge. There was no perceptible
movement in the outlines of the
quiet form lying upon the bed, and the
skilled watcher had no suspicion that behind
the shut eyelids and apathetic features
mind and spirit were still active.
"it isn't so hard to die, after all," ran
the slow surrent of the sick woman's
thought. "It's easier than to live. One
grows tired, somehow, after so many
years. It seems sweet just to stop trying
and?let go. I nave accomplished so
little of all I meant to do, but?the Lord
understands!
"The children will miss me for a while
?poor dears!?but sorrow isn't natural
to VOlinp nonnla I'm
? , ? ? in uul necessary 10
them as I was when they were little. It
would have been dreadful to leave my
babies, but now?it is different! Helen
has her lover?Roger is a good mm, and
they will be going into a borne of their
own before long. And Dorothy?so beautiful
and such a favorite?her friends
must comfort her. And the boys?somehow
they seem to have grown away from
me a bit. I ought not to mind it. It
must be so, I suppose, as boys grow into
men. It will be harder for their father,
but he is so driven at the office?especially
since he went into politics?that he
can't have time to mourn as he would
have mourned years ago, when we were
first married. How happy we were?so
long ago?in the little house on Carlton
street, where Helen was born! Henry
has been a rising man. Any woman
might be proud to be his wife. Some
way I've hardly kept pace with him, but
I've ioved him?loved him!"
The air of the room nad grown heavy,
and the nurse set the door ajar. A sound
of suppressed voices reached her ear,
and she glanced anxiously toward the
bed, but the sick woman showed no signs
of consciousness.
"I need not close the door,'* she said
to herself. "She hears nothing."
Once more skill and training were at
fault. That which, in the nurse's ears,
was only an indistinct murmur, to the
nerve-sense sharpened by illness slowly
separated itself into words which made
thpir wnv tn fha /?Ano/*lAna??ai.
v???? ?? *~J w mv wuoviUUOUCOO awaivc
and alert In the weak frame, as If spoken
along some visible telephone line of
the spirit.
"Oh, Helen!" Could It be Dorothy's
voice so broken and sobbing? "No hope?
Did the doctor say that?"
"None, unless her condition changes?
those were his words, father told me."
The words dropped drearily like the
trickling of water in a cave.
"But she was better yesterday!" That
was Rob, the handsome young collegian,
t
-L January 20, T909.
who had been summoned home when his
mother's illness began to cause apprehension..
"So it seemed. But sLe does not rally
?she take no notice."
"But she can't be going?to die?and
leave us! She wouldn't do such a thing
?Mother!"
The tones of sixteen-year-old Rupert
were smitten tnrough with incredulous
horror.
"I really don't understand it," answered
the oldest sister. "She is 'drifting
away, the doctor savs. Oh nnrothv"
Oh, boys!" she said, in a low, intense
voice, "we haven't any of us looked after
mother as we ought. We have always
been so used to having her do for us. I
have been miserably selfish since?since
I had Roger. I didn't mean It, but I see
It all now."
"You haven't been one-half so selfish
as I," sobbed Dorothy. "Here have I
been rushing here and there, evening after
evening, and she often sitting by herself!
I must have been out of my mind!
As if all the parties and concerts in the
world were worth so much to me as mamma's
little finger!"
"And I've been so careless about writing
her regularly." There was a break
in Rob's voice. "There was always something
cr other going on out of study
hours, and I didn't realize. It was so
easy to think mother wouldn't mind.
And now?why, girls, I could never go
back to college at all if there weren't to
be any more letters from mother!"
"I haven't kissed her good-night for
ever so long," said Rupert. "I'd got a
fool notion that it was babyish. I always
used to think I couldn't go to bed without
it. I wonder if she ever missed it. I've
seen her look at me sometimes when I
started upstairs. What sort of a place
would this be without mother? I could
ucver sittuu n?never: i snoum want to
run away?or drown myself!"
The door of the s\fk room opened a
little wider, and Mr. Allison entered
noiselessly.
"Is there any chance?" he said.
"Apparently none, Mr. Allison. She
lies ail the time like this. One hardly
knows whether it be sleep or stupor."
"How long"?the strong man, choking,
the last twenty-four hours."
"It is hard to say," answered i?ie
nurse, pitifully. "But she has lost within
the last twenty-four Eours.
The husband knelt at the foot of the
bed, behind a screen which had been
placed to shade the sick woman's face
from the lieht. and rested hfs head nnnn
the coverlet.
"My little Nellie!" he moaned, as If
unconscious of any other presence in the
room. "My rose of girls?my bride! ?
the mother of my children?the heart of
my heart?spare her yet to me, O God,
that I may have time to teach her how
much dearer she is to me than money or
lands or honors! Take her not"?
"Mr. Allison!"
"Henry?darling," the faint, thrilling
voice seemed to coma from varv for onrn,.
?''don't grieve?any more! J am going
?to get well!"
It the words of love and appreciation
which beat so vainly at the closed bars
of the coffin-lid were spoken oftene- into
living ears, how many other weary feet
might turn again from the "valley of the
shadow"!?The Advance.