A log had fallen, and turning as it fell, the new surface had caught life from the half-dead ashes, and had blazed up brightly, and the warmth was penetrating gratefully through him.  The old clergyman smiled, and held his thin hands to the flame as he gazed into the fire, but the wonder and awe of his dream were in his eyes.

“My beautiful white birds!” he said, aloud, but softly.  “Mine!  They were out of sight, but they were there all the time.  Surely the dream was sent from Heaven—­surely the Lord means me to believe that my life has been of service after all.”  And as he still gazed, with rapt face, into his study fire, he whispered:  “Angels came and ministered unto him.”

THE DIAMOND BROOCHES

The room was filled with signs of breeding and cultivation; it was bare of the things which mean money.  Books were everywhere; family portraits, gone brown with time, hung on the walls; a tall silver candlestick gleamed from a corner; there was the tarnished gold of carved Florentine frames, such as people bring still from Italy.  But the furniture-covering was faded, the carpet had been turned, the place itself was the small parlor of a cheap apartment, and the wall-paper was atrocious.  The least thoughtful, listening for a moment to that language which a room speaks of those who live in it, would have known this at once as the home of well-bred people who were very poor.

So quiet it was that it seemed empty.  If an observer had stood in the doorway, it might have been a minute before he saw that a man sat in front of the fireless hearth with his arms stretched before him on the table and his head fallen into them.  For many minutes there was no sound, no stir of the man’s nerveless pose; it might have been that he was asleep.  Suddenly the characterless silence of the place was flooded with tragedy, for the man groaned, and a child would have known that the sound came from a torn soul.  He lifted his face—­a handsome, high-bred face, clever, a bit weak,—­and tears were wet on his cheeks.  He glanced about as if fearing to be seen as he wiped them away, and at the moment there was a light bustle, low voices down the hall.  The young man sprang to his feet and stood alert as a step came toward him.  He caught a sharp breath as another man, iron-gray, professional, stood in the doorway.

“Doctor!  You have made the examination—­you think—­” he flung at the newcomer, and the other answered with the cool incisive manner of one whose words weigh.

“Mr. Newbold,” he said, “when you came to my office this morning I told you my conjectures and my fear.  I need not, therefore, go into details again.  I am very sorry to have to say to you—­” he stopped, and looked at the younger man kindly.  “I wish I might make it easier, but it is better that I should tell you that your mother’s condition is as I expected.”

Newbold gave way a step as if under a blow, and his color went gray.  The doctor had seen souls laid bare before, yet he turned his eyes to the floor as the muscles pulled and strained in this young face.  It seemed minutes that the two faced each other in the loaded silence, the doctor gazing gravely at the worn carpet, the other struggling for self-control.  At last Newbold spoke, in the harsh tone which often comes first after great emotion.