f the
chandelier.

"I forgot to tell you that I had a letter from Wilson, this morning,
explaining his telegram. He is coming on because an old uncle up in
Vermont has conveniently died and left Wilson a little money--something
like ten thousand. He's coming on to settle up the estate. Won't it be
jolly to have him?"

"And how fine that he's come into a little money. I can see him posting
down State Street to the steamship offices. He will get a good many
trips out of that ten thousand. What can have detained him? I expected
him here for luncheon."

"Those trains from Albany are always late. He'll be along sometime this
afternoon. And now, don't you want to go upstairs and lie down for
an hour? You've had a busy morning and I don't want you to be tired
to-night."

After his wife went upstairs Alexander worked energetically at the
greens for a few moments. Then, as he was cutting off a length of
string, he sighed suddenly and sat down, staring out of the window at
the snow. The animation died out of his face, but in his eyes there was
a restless light, a look of apprehension and suspense. He kept clasping
and unclasping his big hands as if he were trying to realize something.
The clock ticked through the minutes of a half-hour and the afternoon
outside began to thicken and darken turbidly. Alexander, since he first
sat down, had not changed his position. He leaned forward, his hands
between his knees, scarcely breathing, as if he were holding himself
away from his surroundings, from the room, and from the very chair in
which he sat, from everything except the wild eddies of snow above the
river on which his eyes were fixed with feverish intentness, as if he
were trying to project himself thither. When at last Lucius Wilson was
announced, Alexander sprang eagerly to his feet and hurried to meet his
old instructor.

"Hello, Wilson. What luck! Come into the library. We are to have a lot
of people to dinner to-night, and Winifred's lying down. You will
excuse her, won't you? And now what about yourself? Sit down and tell me
everything."

"I think I'd rather move about, if you don't mind. I've been sitting in
the train for a week, it seems to me." Wilson stood before the fire with
his hands behind him and looked about the room. "You HAVE been busy.
Bartley, if I'd had my choice of all possible places in which to spend
Christmas, your house would certainly be the place I'd have chosen.
Happy people do a great deal for