The Newtown bee., 1898-02-04

over that road from his lonely home to the graveyard that night, with bent head and hands clasped behind him, would have instinctively felt that he had met his Waterloo. It was not an unusu- al thing for him to go over that road when he returned at night; it had be- come almost a common practice, SO that, if the stones in the dusty street had been sentient, they would have reccg nized his passing step; if the stars in the summer sky had been all-seeiug they would have watched for his coming; but never had he carried more discouraged heart than on this night. He was physically worn out, and he had found himself baffi4d and thwarted in the "hiding places of his power"
 It was not only that in a summer all most unprecedented for sickness on the hills, his wife and darling baby girl had DS6A fICJlLuE tAG pale horse and his rider'' had been lying in ambush at every turn. A schoolboy, 8 bright little fellow, had fallen in his play on the schoolhouse common, had hit his head on a stone and fractured his skull; another whom he had especially loved-and the doctor loved all children, and was loved by them-had strolled in- to the field, had picked and eaten red berries which looked so tempting, and which also hold such subtle and swift death. All these had gone down, and no earthly power could have saved them; but none the less did the doctor rebel in bitterness of soul. For the past AS hours he had been In such hand -to-hand fight against fearful odds, as, thank God, 1 comes to very few, and he had been de- feated-iorced to stand by and watch the going out Of two lives that he was
 powerless to savel And there was poor
 Mrs Gewing, whose life might almost be counted by minutes from the coming up
 of to-morfow's sun.
 The white fog along the river with it's
 deadly miasma was only one of the hid den forces all around which seemed like
 sstrong men armed' against him. He
 dropped his head within his hands, and groaned aloud: 1T am like a man
 beating the air, or treadipg water. I
 give of my best for that which profiteth
 not. spend my strength for naught.' Meantime, in the little brown house
 under the hill, poor Mrs Gowing, worn
 out with the unusual unrest of the day,
 had responded to the doctors medicine
 and was sleeping out one of the last
 nights of her life. Mary, in her cham
 Der, tired with her hot days journey
 from Millville, Galso rested. John, or
 the kitchen floor, occa asionallY wakened
 listened, turned over, and slept again And the moon waned and went down
 and the stars, and the short summer
 night dropped itself in the deeper dark
 ness which precedes the dawn.
 
 I Susan, still hanging ovsr the kitchen
 table, stirred, moved her srns, whict had become numb from the weight o1 her head, opened her eyes, rubbed then and sat up. She heard Johns regula breathing outside the door. She ros' . and tip-toed to her mothtr room E listened and clasped her hands in jay ] She remembered the doctors parting command, to s'put out her light, and g ] to bed" aI must have put out my light, and gone to sleep; I vii go righ up to bed, as promisea him.
 II The s'airs went up iron. the kitchen l and fearing Ios5 she should stumble owe. } something and disturb her mother, sh : found match and lighted the candle 2 The wind blew in through the opel l window, and she leaned over the window to close it. The fame of the candl, 5 fared, blew against the thin s1,eve 0 ! her cotton dress, and in one seconed i
 had enveloped her as in a winding sheet { Such shriek pierced the stiffness of tn