from the day he had been
let out of knickerbockers his constant companion had been that greatly
overestimated article. His father dying at a time that cut short David's
school-days, he went out armed with his new knowledge of double-entry,
determined to make a fortune and a commercial name. Meantime, he lived
in a suite of three rooms on West Madison Street with his mother, who
was a good woman, and lived where she did that she might be near her
favorite meeting-house. She prayed, and cooked bad dinners, principally
composed of dispiriting pastry. Her idea of house-keeping was to keep
the shades down, whatever happened; and when David left home in the
evening for any purpose of pleasure, she wept. David persuaded himself
that he despised amusement, and went to bed each night at half-past nine
in a folding bedstead in the front room, and, by becoming absolutely
stolid from mere vegetation, imagined that he was almost fit to be a
Head Clerk.

Walking down the street now after the twenty years, thinking of these
dead but innocent days, this was the picture he saw; and as he reflected
upon it, even the despoiled and desolate years just passed seemed richer
by contrast.

He reached the station thus dreaming, and found, as he had been told
when the warden bade him good-by, that a train was to be at hand
directly bound to the city. A few moments later he was on that train.
Well back in the shadow, and out of sight of the other passengers, he
gave himself up to the enjoyment of the comfortable cushion. He would
willingly have looked from the window,--green fields were new and
wonderful; drifting clouds a marvel; men, houses, horses, farms, all a
revelation,--but those haunting visions were at him again, and would not
leave brain or eye free for other things.

But the next scene had warmer tints. It was the interior of a rich
room,--crimson and amber fabrics, flowers, the gleam of a statue beyond
the drapings; the sound of a tender piano unflinging a familiar melody,
and a woman. She was just a part of all the luxury.

He himself, very timid and conscious of his awkwardness, sat near,
trying barrenly to get some of his thoughts out of his brain on to his
tongue.

"Strange, isn't it," the woman broke in on her own music, "that we
have seen each other so very often and never spoken? I've often thought
introductions were ridiculous. Fancy seeing a person year in and year
out, and really knowing all about him, and being perfec