n humility because he did not wish to chagrin his
daughter. But it is not in nature to resist a suit so meek, so
persistent, and so unasking as Simeon's. Soon Hiram liked to have his
adorer on his knee, on the arm of his chair, on the table beside him;
occasionally he moved his unsteady hand slowly to Simeon's head to give
it a pat. And in the long night hours of wakefulness there came to be a
soothing companionship in the sound of Simeon's gentle breathing in the
little bed at the head of his bed; for Simeon would sleep nowhere else.

The shy races of mankind, those that hide their affections and rarely
give them expression, are fondest of domestic animals, because to them
they can show themselves without fear of being laughed at or repulsed.
But it happened that Hiram had never formed a friendship with a dog. In
his sickness and loneliness, he was soon accepting and returning Simeon's
fondness in kind. And at the time when a man must re-value everything in
life and put a proper estimate upon it, this unselfish, incessant, wholly
disinterested love of poor Simeon's gave him keen pleasure and content.
After the stroke that entombed him, some subtle instinct seemed to guide
Simeon when to sit and sympathize at a distance, when to approach and
give a gentle caress, with tears running from his eyes. But the death
Simeon did not understand at all. Those who came to make the last
arrangements excited him to fury. Adelaide had to lock him in her
dressing room until the funeral was over. When she released him, he flew
to the room where he had been accustomed to sit with his great and good
friend. No Hiram! He ran from room to room, chattering wildly, made the
tour of gardens and outbuildings, returned to the room in which his quest
had started. He seemed dumb with despair. He had always looked
ludicrously old and shriveled; his appearance now became tragic. He would
start up from hours of trancelike motionlessness, would make a tour of
house and grounds; scrambling and shambling from place to place;
chattering at doors he could not open, then pausing to listen; racing to
the front fence and leaping to its top to crane up and down the street;
always back in the old room in a few minutes, to resume his watch and
wait. He would let no one but Adelaide touch him, and he merely endured
her; good and loving though she seemed to be, he felt that she was
somehow responsible for the mysterious vanishing of his god while she had
him shut