I think a half-hour must have fled in silence, when Jeffy stole in, his eyes opening as Chloe’s had done not many days agone, when the vision of myself was painted thereon.  I upheld a cautionary index, and he was still as a mouse, but like a mouse he proceeded to investigate; he opened a bureau-drawer the least way, and pushing his arm in where my laces were wont to dwell, he drew out, with exultant delight, the wig before mentioned.

“What do you s’pose he wants with this thing’?” whispered Jeffy; and he pointed to the soft, fair masses of curling hair that rested against the pillow.

Jeffy was a spoiled boy,—­“my doing,” everybody said, and it may have been truly.  He was Chloe’s son, and had inherited her ways and affectionate heart, and for these I forgave him much.

I said, “Hush!”—­whereupon he lifted up the wig and deposited it upon the top of his tangled circlets of hair before I could stay him.

I reached out my hand for it, not venturing on words, for fear of disturbing the patient; but Jeffy, with unpardonable wilfulness, danced out of my circuit, and at the same instant the sick man turned his head, and beheld Jeffy in the possession of his property.  Jeffy looked very repentant, said in low, deprecatory tones, “I’m sorry,” and, depositing the wig in the drawer, hastened to escape, which I know he would not have done but for the disabled condition of the invalid, who could only look his wrath.  I had so hoped that he would sleep until some one came; but this unfortunate Jeffy had dissipated my hope, and left me in pitiable dilemma.

In the vain endeavor to restore the scattered influence of Morpheus, I flew to one of the aids of the mystic god, and beseeching its assistance, I prepared to administer the draught.  I could not find a spoon on the instant.  When I did, I made a mistake in dropping the opiate, and was obliged to commence anew, and all the while that handsome face, with large, pleading eyes in it, held me in painful duress.  When I turned towards him and held the glass to his lips, I trembled, as I had not done, even in the church, when Abraham Axtell and I stood before the opened entrance into earth.  All the words that I that day had heard in the tower were ringing like clarions in the air, and they shook me with their vibrant forces.

“Am I in heaven?”

It was the same voice that had said to Miss Axtell, “Will you send me out again?” that spake these words.

Was he going into delirium again?  I was desirous of keeping him upon our planet, and I said,—­

“Oh, no,—­they don’t need morphine in heaven.”

“They need you there, though.  You must go now,” he said; and he made an effort to take the glass from my hand.

“I have never been in heaven,” I said.

“Then they deceive, they deceive, and there isn’t any heaven!  Oh, what if after all there shouldn’t be such a place?”