"I didn't thenk it wud come to this.

So as I loved him! Oh, Mr.Holmes, he's hed a pore chance in livin',--forgive him this! Him that'll come to-morrow 'd say to forgive him this." She caught the old man's head in her arms with an agony of tears, and held it tight.
"I hev hed a pore chance," he said, looking up,--"that's God's truth, Lo! I dunnot keer fur that: it's too late goin' back.

But Lo--Mas'r," he mumbled, servilely, "it's on'y a little time t' th' end: let me stay with Lo.

She loves me,--Lo does." A look of disgust crept over Holmes's face.
"Stay, then," he muttered,--"I wash my hands of you, you old scoundrel!" He bent over Lois with his rare, pitiful smile.
"Have I his life in my hands?
I put it into yours,--so, child! Now put it all out of your head, and look up here to wish me good-bye." She looked up cheerfully, hardly conscious how deep the danger had been; but the flush had gone from her face, leaving it sad and still.
"I must go to keep Christmas, Lois," he said, playfully.
"Yoh're keepin' it here, Sir." She held her weak grip on his hand still, with the vague outlook in her eyes that came there sometimes.
"Was it fur me yoh done it ?" "Yes, for you." "And fur Him that's comin', Sir ?" smiling.
Holmes's face grew graver.
"No, Lois." She looked into his eyes bewildered.

"For the poor child that loved me" he said, half to himself, smoothing her hair.
Perhaps in that day when the under-currents of the soul's life will be bared, this man will know the subtile instincts that drew him out of his self-reliance by the hand of the child that loved him to the Love beyond, that was man and died for him, as well as she.