et,
never, if I live to a hundred. First, all through, at every tone of his
voice, there was the thought that the brokenhearted look in the eyes of
this man, such a contrast to you in every way possible, might be the
very look in your eyes after a while, if I left you. I think I'm not
vain to know I make a lot of difference to you, father--considering we
two are all alone." There was a questioning inflection, but he smiled,
as if he knew.

"You make all the difference. You are the foundation of my life. All the
rest counts for nothing beside you." The father's voice was slow and
very quiet.

"That thought haunted me," went on the young man, a bit unsteadily, "and
the contrast of the old clergyman and you made it seem as if you were
there beside me. It sounds unreasonable, but it was so. I looked at him,
old, poor, unsuccessful, narrow-minded, with hardly even the dignity of
age, and I couldn't help seeing a vision of you, every year of your life
a glory to you, with your splendid mind, and splendid body, and all the
power and honor and luxury that seem a natural background to you. Proud
as I am of you, it seemed cruel, and then it came to my mind like a stab
that perhaps without me, your only son, all of that would--well, what
you said just now. Would count for nothing--that you would be
practically, some day, just a lonely and pathetic old man like that
other."

The hand on the boy's shoulder stirred a little. "You thought right,
Ted."

"That was one impression the clergyman's sermon made, and the other was
simply his beautiful goodness. It shone from him at every syllable,
uninspired and uninteresting as they were. You couldn't help knowing
that his soul was white as an angel's. Such sincerity, devotion, purity
as his couldn't be mistaken. As I realized it, it transfigured the whole
place. It made me feel that if that quality--just goodness--could so
glorify all the defects of his look and mind and manner, it must be
worth while, and I would like to have it. So I knew what was right in my
heart--I think you can always know what's right if you want to know--and
I just chucked my pride and my stubbornness into the street, and--and I
caught the 7:35 train."

The light of renunciation, the exhaustion of wrenching effort, the
trembling triumph of hard-won victory, were in the boy's face, and the
thought, as he looked at it, dear and familiar in every shadow, that he
had never seen spirit shine through clay more tran