he was taken
home. And I walked back alone, with a queer little feeling somewhere in
the region of my heart.

Man, after all, is a harp, I said to myself; a good player--the right
woman can draw forth wonderful music, but the wrong woman will call out
nothing but discords.

Materials don't count for everything; there's a deal in the cooking.

I was on my way home, when I met two of my neighbors hurrying toward the
scene--Mr. and Mrs. Daemon.

"You're too late," I said, "it's all over."

"I only heard of it a little while ago;" said Mrs. Daemon; "I was in the
city, and I met Mr. Daemon who had just been told there was a wreck off
this shore, and was coming out to see it, so we both took the first
train."

They hurried on, wishing to see what they could, and I walked homeward.

Their appearance had slipped into my reflections as neatly as a good
illustration slips into a discourse. I must tell you their story, and
then see if you dare say man is not a harp, and woman not a harpist.

Years ago, when I was a child, I used to see my mother wax indignant
over the wrongs inflicted upon one of her neighbors--a gentle little
woman whose backbone evidently needed restarching. She was the mother of
three children, and should have been a most happy wife, for her tastes
were domestic--her devotion to her family unbounded. Unhappily, she was
wedded to a man of overbearing, tyrannical temper--one of those ugly
natures in which meanness is generated by devotion. The more he realized
his power over his poor little wife, the more he bullied her, and
beneath this treatment she faded, day by day, until finally she closed
her tired, pathetic eyes forever. My mother used to say she had no doubt
the man was overwhelmed by her death, and would have suffered from
remorse, but for the injudicious zeal of some of the neighbors, who were
so wrought up by this culmination of years of injustice and cruelty,
that they attacked him fore and aft, as it were, creating a scandalous
scene over the little woman's remains, accusing him of being her
murderer, and assigning him to the warmest quarters in the nether world.
As a result of this outbreak of public opinion the man hardened, and
assumed a defiant attitude which he continued to maintain toward the
neighbors for some years. In the midst of all this furor, the sister of
the departed wife walked calm and still. The power of the silent woman
has often been dwelt upon, but I really do not think