out as you will have them; and I put
out your favorite night-shirt--the one with the sleeves torn off
above the elbows and the ravellings hanging down just as you
require. Aren't you tired of books yet? Are you never going to
get tired? And the same books! Why, I get fresh babies every few
years--a complete change."

"How many generations of babies do you suppose there have been
since this immortal infant was born?" he asked, laying his hand
reverently over the book on his lap as if upon the head of a divine
child.

"I don't know and I don't care," she replied. "I wish the immortal
infant would let you alone." She stooped and kissed his brow, and
wrung his hand silently, and went out into the storm. He heard her
close the street door and heard the rusty click of her cotton
umbrella as she raised it. Then he turned to the table at his
elbow and kindled his deep-bowled pipe and drew over his legs the
skirts of his long gown, coarse, austere, sombre.

He looked comfortable. A rainy night may depress a woman nursing a
sick child that is not her own--a child already fighting for its
feeble, unclaimed, repudiated life, in a world of weeping clouds;
but such a night diffuses cheer when the raindrops are heard
tapping the roof above beloved bookshelves, tapping the
window-panes; when there is low music in the gutter on the back
porch; when a student lamp, throwing its shadow over the ceiling
and the walls, reserves its exclusive lustre for lustrous
pages--pages over which men for centuries have gladly burnt out the
oil of their brief lamps, their iron and bronze, their silver and
gold and jewelled lamps--many-colored eyes of the nights of ages.

It was now middle September of another year and Professor Hardage
had entered upon the work of another session. The interval had
left no outward mark on him. The mind stays young a long time when
nourished by a body such as his; and the body stays young a long
time when mastered by such a mind. Day by day faithfully to do
one's work and to be restless for no more; without bitterness to
accept obscurity for ambition; to possess all vital passions and to
govern them; to stand on the world's thoroughfare and see the young
generations hurrying by, and to put into the hands of a youth here
and there a light which will burn long after our own personal taper
is extinguished; to look back upon the years already gone as not
without usefulness and honor, and forward to what may