country, with such a climate, it seems as if one could almost
make repair equal waste, and thus keep death indefinitely at bay. But
all men, even the strongest, are living under a death sentence, with but
an indefinite reprieve. And even yet, with all of our science and
health, we can not fully account for those diseases which seemingly pick
the very best flower of sinew and strength.

Isaac Newton, the strong and rugged farmer, sickened and died in a week.
"The result of a cold caught when sweaty and standing in a draft," the
surgeon explained. "The act of God to warn us all of the vanity of
life." Acute pneumonia, perhaps, is what we would call it--a fever that
burned out the bellows in a week.

In such cases the very strength of the man seems to supply fuel for the
flames. And so just as the Autumn came with changing leaves, the young
wife was left to fight the battle of life alone--alone, save for the
old, old miracle that her life supported another. A wife, a widow, a
mother--all within a year!

On Christmas-Day the babe was born--born where most men die: in
obscurity. He was so weak and frail that none but the mother believed he
would live.

The doctor quoted a line from "Richard the Third," "Sent before my time
into this breathing world scarce half made up," and gave the infant into
the keeping of an old nurse with an ominous shake of the head, and went
his way, absolved. His time was too valuable to waste on such a useless
human mite.

The persistent words of the mother that the child should not, must not
die, possibly had something to do with keeping the breath of life in the
puny man-child. The fond mother had given him the name of his father,
even before birth! He was to live to do the work that the man now dead
had hoped to do; that is, live a long and honest life, and leave the
fair acres more valuable than he found them.

Such was the inauspicious beginning of what Herbert Spencer declared was
the greatest life since Aristotle studied the starry universe.

* * * * *

Outside of India the lot of widows is not especially to be pitied. A
widow has beautiful dreams, while the married woman copes with the stern
reality.

Then, no phase of life is really difficult when you accept it; and the
memory of a great love lost is always a blessing and a benediction to
the one who endures the first cruel shock.

The young widow looked after her little estate, and with perhaps s