“I didn’t need Mary’s. But this is all I’ve ever seen of my little girl. To-morrow, at daybreak,—it will be just at daybreak,—when you see that I’ve passed, I want you to lay this here on my breast. Then fold my hands upon it”—
His speech was arrested. He seemed to hearken an instant.
“Doctor,” he said, with excitement in his eye and sudden strength of voice, “what is that I hear?”
“I don’t know,” replied his friend; “one of the servants probably down in the hall.” But he, too, seemed to have been startled. He lifted his head. There was a sound of some one coming up the stairs in haste.
“Doctor.” The Doctor was rising from his chair.
“Lie still, Richling.”
But the sick man suddenly sat erect.
“Doctor—it’s—O Doctor, I”—
The door flew open; there was a low outcry from the threshold, a moan of joy from the sick man, a throwing wide of arms, and a rush to the bedside, and John and Mary Richling—and the little Alice, too—
Come, Doctor Sevier; come out and close the door.