ey.

"I'm glad," says Esther, "poor man! Good-bye, Mr. Corkey. You are
neglecting me lately. I hope you will be elected. I wish I could
vote. Oh, yes, I guess the clerk may give me a stock of white
notepaper. Do you believe it, Mr. Corkey, I haven't a scrap about the
house that isn't mourning paper! Yes, that will do. Send plenty.
Good-bye. Come over and tell me about politics. Tell me something
that will make life seem pleasant. I'm tired of my troubles. I think
I'm forgetting David. Good-bye."

BOOK IV

GEORGE HARPWOOD

CHAPTER I

CORKEY'S GOOD SCHEME

The courtly and affable George Harpwood has fought the good fight and
is finishing the course. It is he who has labored with the prominent
citizens. It is he who has moved the great editors to place David
Lockwin in the western pantheon--to pay him the honors due to Lincoln
and Douglas. It is Harpwood who has carried the banquet to success.
It is he who, in the midnight of Esther Lockwin's grief, prepared for
her confidential reading those long and scholarly essays of consolation
which she studied so gratefully. Mr. Harpwood did not put his
lucubrations in the care of Dr. Tarpion. Each and every one was
written for no other eye but Esther's.

While Dr. Tarpion was holding the husband at bay, Dr. Tarpion was
rapidly overcoming a prejudice against Harpwood.

"Really, the man has been invaluable to me," the administrator now
vows. "No one could deliberately and selfishly enter the grief-life of
such a widow."

For Harpwood, smarting with a double defeat, in the loss of Esther and
the election of Lockwin, has at once devoted himself to the saddest
offices. He has been diligent in all kinds of weather. He has
discreetly avoided the outer appearance of personal service. But he
has filled the place of spiritual comforter to Esther Lockwin, and has
filled it well.

If you ask what friends Mrs. Lockwin has, the servants will speak of
Dr. Tarpion first, of the architects, and of Corkey. Harpwood they do
not mention. He may have called--so have a thousand other gentlemen.
They have rarely seen Mrs. Lockwin, for she has been at the cenotaph,
the hospital, and the grave of little Davy.

So long as Harpwood's suit has flourished by letter, why should the
less cautious method of speech be interposed? To-day, Esther could not
sustain the intermission of the usual consolatory epistle.

George Harpwood is one of those characters who have