That Mr.
Russell--your mother tells me he hasn't been here again--not since----"

"No," she said, quietly, as Adams paused. "He never came again."

"Well, but maybe----"

"No," she said. "There isn't any 'maybe.' I told him good-bye that
night, papa. It was before he knew about Walter--I told you."

"Well, well," Adams said. "Young people are entitled to their own
privacy; I don't want to pry." He emptied his pipe into a chipped saucer
on the table beside him, laid the pipe aside, and reverted to a former
topic. "Speaking of dying----"

"Well, but we weren't!" Alice protested.

"Yes, about not knowing how to live till you're through living--and THEN
maybe not!" he said, chuckling at his own determined pessimism. "I see
I'm pretty old because I talk this way--I remember my grandmother saying
things a good deal like all what I'm saying now; I used to hear her
at it when I was a young fellow--she was a right gloomy old lady, I
remember. Well, anyhow, it reminds me: I want to get on my feet again as
soon as I can; I got to look around and find something to go into."

Alice shook her head gently. "But, papa, he told you----"

"Never mind throwing that dang doctor up at me!" Adams interrupted,
peevishly. "He said I'd be good for SOME kind of light job--if I could
find just the right thing. 'Where there wouldn't be either any physical
or mental strain,' he said. Well, I got to find something like that.
Anyway, I'll feel better if I can just get out LOOKING for it."

"But, papa, I'm afraid you won't find it, and you'll be disappointed."

"Well, I want to hunt around and SEE, anyhow."

Alice patted his hand. "You must just be contented, papa. Everything's
going to be all right, and you mustn't get to worrying about doing
anything. We own this house it's all clear--and you've taken care of
mama and me all our lives; now it's our turn."

"No, sir!" he said, querulously. "I don't like the idea of being the
landlady's husband around a boarding-house; it goes against my gizzard.
_I_ know: makes out the bills for his wife Sunday mornings--works with
a screw-driver on somebody's bureau drawer sometimes--'tends the furnace
maybe--one the boarders gives him a cigar now and then. That's a FINE
life to look forward to! No, sir; I don't want to finish as a landlady's
husband!"

Alice looked grave; for she knew the sketch was but too accurately
prophetic in every probability. "But, papa," she said, to console him,
"don't you t