YOURS WITH ALL MY HEART 



he'll take care of you, mamma, and Robbie, 

 and and dear little Gyp!" 



Little Gyp had come creeping up from his 

 vigil at her feet, and rooted his cold nose 

 under the little snow-flake of a hand, which 

 fluttered over his head in a weak and trem- 

 ulous caress, then fell, frozen to rest, ere 

 life's hard task was half begun. Then the 

 three watchers beheld a strange, mystic light 

 grow and grow in the little face, it wasn't 

 wan and sad any longer, the good God- 

 man must have come to meet that little child 

 with his own light, shining out of the black 

 dark ! For Sissy was gone gone like a 

 fluttering snow-bird into the wild storm. 



"Dear little Gyp!" His name was last 

 on her lips, her last caress was on his poor 

 little mongrel head; and his quavering wail 

 was first to rise above the weird night wind, 

 while the other two wept in silence. 



Surely, in this the third year of her widow- 

 hood, sorrow had not come single-handed to 

 Myra Draper. Poor Robbie's bright, hope- 

 ful boyhood, bright in spite of poverty and 

 deprivation, had been overcast with a cruel 

 blow; he was a hopeless cripple, his strong 

 right hand blown to atoms with a giant- 



49 



