s gift was to HER, and
not to McTeague--had sent a chatelaine watch of German silver; Uncle
Oelbermann's present, however, had been awaited with a good deal of
curiosity. What would he send? He was very rich; in a sense Trina was
his protege. A couple of days before that upon which the wedding was
to take place, two boxes arrived with his card. Trina and McTeague,
assisted by Old Grannis, had opened them. The first was a box of all
sorts of toys.

"But what--what--I don't make it out," McTeague had exclaimed. "Why
should he send us toys? We have no need of toys." Scarlet to her
hair, Trina dropped into a chair and laughed till she cried behind her
handkerchief.

"We've no use of toys," muttered McTeague, looking at her in perplexity.
Old Grannis smiled discreetly, raising a tremulous hand to his chin.

The other box was heavy, bound with withes at the edges, the letters and
stamps burnt in.

"I think--I really think it's champagne," said Old Grannis in a whisper.
So it was. A full case of Monopole. What a wonder! None of them had seen
the like before. Ah, this Uncle Oelbermann! That's what it was to be
rich. Not one of the other presents produced so deep an impression as
this.

After Old Grannis and the dentist had gone through the rooms, giving
a last look around to see that everything was ready, they returned to
McTeague's "Parlors." At the door Old Grannis excused himself.

At four o'clock McTeague began to dress, shaving himself first before
the hand-glass that was hung against the woodwork of the bay window.
While he shaved he sang with strange inappropriateness:

"No one to love, none to Caress,
Left all alone in this world's wilderness."

But as he stood before the mirror, intent upon his shaving, there came a
roll of wheels over the cobbles in front of the house. He rushed to the
window. Trina had arrived with her father and mother. He saw her get
out, and as she glanced upward at his window, their eyes met.

Ah, there she was. There she was, his little woman, looking up at him,
her adorable little chin thrust upward with that familiar movement of
innocence and confidence. The dentist saw again, as if for the first
time, her small, pale face looking out from beneath her royal tiara of
black hair; he saw again her long, narrow blue eyes; her lips, nose, and
tiny ears, pale and bloodless, and suggestive of anaemia, as if all the
vitality that should have lent them color had been sucked up into