The boy remembered a quaint text of Scripture:  “Save me, O God! for the waters have come in unto my soul;” and he repeated it in the strong man’s ear.  “Go on,” cried Wait, rising upon his elbow; “I have heard that before:  tell me the rest.”

“I have the good book here,” replied Paul.  “I am sure it will be pleasant to you, sir, if you will let me read.”

“Do so, boy; I used to know it well.  An old friend taught those strange words to me, but I have forgotten them now.”

Paul read some soothing and beautiful Psalms, which took his companion’s mind back to his native mountains, and the white spire of the village church where he had worshipped with his mother.  The hard lines melted in his face as he listened, but Paul fell upon a bitter verse, and the agent’s conscience began to trouble him.  He could not look into the boy’s eyes, for they seemed to rebuke him, and at last he commanded Paul to stop.

It was midnight.  They heard the great clock in the hall strike twelve, and all the household slumbered.

“Go to your mistress’s room,” said Wait; “tell her that I must see her now—­she must come at once.  The morning may never come to me.  Go; God bless you!”

He called Paul back when he had got to the door, and added falteringly: 

“My boy, do you say your prayers?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Would you mind thinking of me when you say them to-night?”

“I do so every night, sir.”

“Good-night!”

Paul heard the agent sobbing as he stole away; but when he knocked at Mrs. Everett’s door she answered petulantly, and at first she refused to rise.  She had little self-denial; it would pain her to enter a dying chamber; and she would have left Wait to perish, had not some strange passage from the romance entered her head of dead folk, with secrets on their minds, haunting the living.  It would be very terrible to be haunted, and the old woman was frightened into obedience.  When she returned her mind was disquieted, and she made Paul stay in her room to compose her with cheerful talk.  Finally she fell asleep, and he hastened to the agent’s chamber.  It was very dark within, and he waited a moment that the other might recognize him.  Wait seemed to be in deep slumber, though Paul could not hear him breathe; but as the lad ventured to place his head upon the quilt, it encountered a hand so cold and hard that it seemed to be marble.  Paul knew that he need no longer remember his enemy in his prayers.

What transpired between his mistress and her agent at this dying interview Paul could not surmise, but he believed that it concerned himself.  He perceived that Mrs. Everett treated him more considerately afterward; and many times, as he looked up from a long silence, he found her regarding him inquisitively.  She asked him strange questions once, bearing upon his early life, and he was almost encouraged to reveal the secret of his birth; but she seemed to divine his