A Golden Opportunity ZZZ 



What had happened ? The L-road was silent 

 as an ancient tomb ! The surface system was 

 paralyzed ! There was never a gong, nor a metal 

 shoe striking a cobble ; it was awful ! Then 

 came a gasping whisper, then another and another. 

 That settled it! There was some tremendous 

 fire down town and everything was tied up, and 

 somebody in my room, or the next, had been left 

 to die alone. I could hear his, or her, soul sliding 

 out between the set teeth, and not caring to have 

 even some stranger's soul get lost, I proceeded 

 to get up. 



At this instant came another sound. Evi- 

 dently the suffering soul had got away and was 

 now wishing itself safe back again, for there came 

 a slow, solemn, lost-forever sort of wailing — an 

 .^olian brand of dead march, in which every 

 string was busy and a fair breeze pledged by the 

 weather bureau. In it was every known note of 

 grief unmeasured, from the hopeless misery of a 

 child irrigating a broken doll, to the staider and 

 better sustained effort of Rachel mourning for 

 her children, with a dash of banshee at the bot- 

 tom of the cup of sorrow. Sweetly solemn, 

 wildly sad as it was, it was very welcome, for 

 those same old pines had whispered my cradle- 

 song in the tow-headed past. 



Some few moments later, as it seemed to me, 

 the venerable family horse took a stroll through 



