It was a farewell song, so full of genuine pathos, and so tenderly sung, that it was in vain to try to listen without a swelling of the throat and a sense of sadness.  Something in the way that the people pressed nearer to listen suggested to Eurie that it must be designed as a farewell tribute to somebody, and presently Prof.  Sherwin mounted a seat that served as a platform and gave them a tender informal farewell address.  In every sentence his great, warm heart shone.

“I am going away,” he said, “before the blessed season at Chautauqua is concluded.  I am going with a sad heart, for I feel that opportunities here for work for the Master have been great, and some of them I have lost.  And yet there is light in the sadness, for the work that I can not do will yet be done.  I once sat before my organ improvising a thought that was in my heart, trying to give expression to it, and I could not.  I knew what I wanted, and I knew it was in my heart, but how to give it expression I did not know.  A celebrated organist came up the stairs and stood beside me.  I looked around to him.  ‘Can’t you take this tune,’ I said, ’just where I leave it, and finish it for me as I have it in my heart to do?  I can’t give it utterance.  Don’t you see what I want?’”

“‘Perhaps I do,’ he said, and he placed his fingers over my fingers, on the same keys that mine were touching, and I slipped out of the seat and back into the shadow, and he slipped into my place, and then the music rolled forth.  My tune, only I could not play it.  He was doing it for me.  So, though I may have failed in my work that I have tried to do here, the great Master is here, and I pray and I hope and I believe that he will put his grand hand upon my unfinished work and in heaven I shall meet it completed.’”

What was there in this to move Eurie to tears?  She did not know Prof.  Sherwin—­that is, she had never been introduced to him—­but she had heard him sing, she had heard him pray, she had met him in the walk and asked where the Sunday-school lesson was, and he had in part directed her—­directed her in such a way that she had been led to seek further, and in doing so had met Miss Ryder, and in meeting her had been interested ever since in studying a Christian life.  Was this one of Prof.  Sherwin’s unfinished tunes?  Would he meet it again in heaven?

A very tender spirit took possession of Eurie—­an almost irresistible longing to know more of this influence, or presence, or whatever name it should be called, that so moved hearts, and made the friends of a week say farewell with tears, and yet with hopeful smiles as they spoke in joy and assurance of a future meeting.

Prof.  Sherwin and his friends embarked, and the dainty little steamer turned her graceful head toward Mayville, and slipped away over the silver water.  Eurie made no attempt to get away from the throng who pressed to the edge of the dock to get the last bow, the last flutter of his handkerchief.  She even drew out her own handkerchief and fluttered it after him, and received from him a special bow, and was almost decided to resolve to be present in joy at that other meeting, and to make sure this very day of her title to an inheritance there.  Almost!