Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

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.