n a bare two inches of the sill. Almost invariably she heard him;
but she was a wise old woman; a philosopher of parts. She knew better
than to allow a window to shatter the peace of their marital felicity.
As she lay there, smiling a little grimly in the dark and giving no sign
of being awake, she thought, "Oh, well, I guess a closed window won't
kill me either."

Still, sometimes, just to punish him a little, and to prove that she was
nobody's fool, she would wait until he had dropped off to sleep again
and then she, too, would achieve a stealthy trip to the window and would
raise it slowly, carefully, inch by inch.

"How did that window come to be open?" he would say in the morning,
being a poor dissembler.

"Window? Why, it's just the way it was when we went to bed." And she
would stoop to pick up the pillow that lay on the floor.

There was little or no talk of death between this comfortable, active,
sound-appearing man of almost seventy and this plump capable woman of
sixty-six. But as always, between husband and wife, it was understood
wordlessly (and without reason) that old man Minick would go first. Not
that either of them had the slightest intention of going. In fact, when
it happened they were planning to spend the winter in California and
perhaps live there indefinitely if they liked it and didn't get too
lonesome for George and Nettie, and the Chicago smoke, and Chicago
noise, and Chicago smells and rush and dirt. Still, the solid sum paid
yearly in insurance premiums showed clearly that he meant to leave her
in comfort and security. Besides, the world is full of widows. Everyone
sees that. But how many widowers? Few. Widows there are by the
thousands; living alone; living in hotels; living with married daughters
and sons-in-law or married sons and daughters-in-law. But of widowers in
a like situation there are bewilderingly few. And why this should be no
one knows.

So, then. The California trip never materialized. And the year that
followed never was quite clear in old man Minick's dazed mind. In the
first place, it was the year in which stocks tumbled and broke their
backs. Gilt-edged securities showed themselves to be tinsel. Old man
Minick had retired from active business just one year before, meaning to
live comfortably on the fruit of a half-century's toil. He now saw that
fruit rotting all about him. There was in it hardly enough nourishment
to sustain them. Then came the day when Ma Minick we