e Fosters were not listening--their cup was full, it could contain
no more. They sat with bowed heads, dead to all things but the ache at
their hearts.

An hour later. Still they sat there, bowed, motionless, silent, the
visitor long ago gone, they unaware.

Then they stirred, and lifted their heads wearily, and gazed at each
other wistfully, dreamily, dazed; then presently began to twaddle to
each other in a wandering and childish way. At intervals they lapsed
into silences, leaving a sentence unfinished, seemingly either unaware
of it or losing their way. Sometimes, when they woke out of these
silences they had a dim and transient consciousness that something had
happened to their minds; then with a dumb and yearning solicitude they
would softly caress each other's hands in mutual compassion and support,
as if they would say: "I am near you, I will not forsake you, we
will bear it together; somewhere there is release and forgetfulness,
somewhere there is a grave and peace; be patient, it will not be long."

They lived yet two years, in mental night, always brooding, steeped in
vague regrets and melancholy dreams, never speaking; then release came
to both on the same day.

Toward the end the darkness lifted from Sally's ruined mind for a
moment, and he said:

"Vast wealth, acquired by sudden and unwholesome means, is a snare. It
did us no good, transient were its feverish pleasures; yet for its
sake we threw away our sweet and simple and happy life--let others take
warning by us."

He lay silent awhile, with closed eyes; then as the chill of death crept
upward toward his heart, and consciousness was fading from his brain, he
muttered:

"Money had brought him misery, and he took his revenge upon us, who had
done him no harm. He had his desire: with base and cunning calculation
he left us but thirty thousand, knowing we would try to increase it, and
ruin our life and break our hearts. Without added expense he could
have left us far above desire of increase, far above the temptation
to speculate, and a kinder soul would have done it; but in him was no
generous spirit, no pity, no--"

A DOG'S TALE

CHAPTER I

My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am a
Presbyterian. This is what my mother told me, I do not know these
nice distinctions myself. To me they are only fine large words meaning
nothing. My mother had a fondness for such; she liked to say them, and
see other dogs look