“Be gorry ye’re right!” said Mike, who was greatly relieved at finding his report shaped for him in such a way that he would not be obliged to tell a falsehood.

“An’ thank yer old woman for me,” said Jim, “an’ tell her she’s the queen of the huckleberry bushes, an’ a jewel to the side o’ the road she lives on.”

“Divil a bit will I do it,” responded Mike.  “She’ll be so grand I can’t live wid her.”

“An’ tell her when ye’ve had yer quarrel,” said Jim, “that there’ll allers be a place for her in Number Ten.”

They chaffed one another until Mike passed out of sight among the trees; and Jim, notwithstanding his new society, felt lonelier, as he turned back to his cabin, than he had ever felt when there was no human being within twenty miles of him.

The sun of early May had begun to shine brightly, the willows were growing green by the side of the river, the resinous buds were swelling daily, and making ready to burst into foliage, the birds returned one after another from their winter journeyings, and the thrushes filled the mornings and the evenings alike with their carolings.  Spring had come to the woods again, with words of promise and wings of fulfillment, and Jim’s heart was full of tender gladness.  He had gratified his benevolent impulses, and he found upon his hands that which would tax their abounding energies.  Life had never seemed to him so full of significance as it did then.  He could see what he had been saving money for, and he felt that out of the service he was rendering to the poor and the distressed was growing a love for them that gave a new and almost divine flavor to his existence.

Benedict mended slowly, but he mended daily, and gave promise of the permanent recovery of a healthy body and a sound mind.  It was a happy day for Jim when, with Harry and the dog bounding before him, and Benedict leaning on his arm, he walked over to his old cabin, and all ate together at his own rude table.  Jim never encouraged his friend’s questions.  He endeavored, by every practical way, to restrain his mind from wandering into the past, and encouraged him to associate his future with his present society and surroundings.  The stronger the patient grew, the more willing he became to shut out the past, which, as memory sometimes—­nay, too often—­recalled it, was an unbroken history of trial, disappointment, grief, despair, and dreams of great darkness.

There was one man whom he could never think of without a shudder, and with that man his possible outside life was inseparably associated.  Mr. Belcher had always been able, by his command of money and his coarse and despotic will, to compel him into any course or transaction that he desired.  His nature was offensive to Benedict to an extreme degree, and when in his presence, particularly when he entered it driven by necessity, he felt shorn of his own manhood.  He felt him to be without conscience, without principle,