that before, even when most drunk! He threw himself upon him: his
face was dreadfully cold. He pulled and shook him in fear -- he could
not have told of what, but he would not wake. He was gone to see
what God could do for him there, for whom nothing more could be done
here.

But Gibbie did not know anything about death, and went on trying to
wake him. At last he observed that, although his mouth was wide
open, the breath did not come from it. Thereupon his heart began to
fail him. But when he lifted an eyelid, and saw what was under it,
the house rang with the despairing shriek of the little orphan.




CHAPTER VII.

THE TOWN-SPARROW.

"This, too, will pass," is a Persian word: I should like it better
if it were "This, too, shall pass."

Gibbie's agony passed, for God is not the God of the dead but of the
living. Through the immortal essence in him, life became again
life, and he ran about the streets as before. Some may think that
wee Sir Gibbie -- as many now called him, some knowing the truth, and
others in kindly mockery -- would get on all the better for the loss
of such a father; but it was not so. In his father he had lost his
Paradise, and was now a creature expelled. He was not so much to be
pitied as many a child dismissed by sudden decree from a home to a