whether his judgment approved or not. He was just the
square foundation I could lean away out on--could dance jigs on if I
wanted to. Now that he is dead--or dead to me--I can only hope that he
is happy. Oh! if I had but listened to you, mother, had never brought
that girl into the house. My own vineyard have I not kept."

"Let by-ganes be by-ganes--but I wad jest like to hae Davvit by the
lug."

"Lug along, mother! Here I am!" I managed to shout, and then I hung
over that fence and laughed till my specs dropped off in the grass, and
my stick fell away from me. I could not move without it, so I had to
wait till the two women took pity on me and released me from my
impalement.

Between them they got me into the house and on to my old sofa, and
listened to what I had to say.

"I was share there must be some mistak'," said my mother, her
self-respect restored, but, when I saw how affectionately her hand
rested on the bowed head of her weeping daughter-in-law, I did not
regret the bullet in my knee.

"We'll put it all down to your Theosophy, Belle--a collection of
half-truths, more dangerous than lies, when you shove them too far."

"Don't let us talk about that now, David. It breaks my heart to see you
so thin. Your clothes are just hanging on you. Oh! if I had only known
the true state of the case and been there to nurse you!"

"Mary has been very good to me, I assure you."

"I don't want to think about that girl any more. I'm glad she's all
right, but I hope never to lay eyes on her again."

"Oh, yes, she's all right, and when she marries Dr. Flaker she won't
want to '_pa_pa' and '_mam_ma' us, though she may condescend to
patronize us a little."

"I'll be gled o' the day she draps the name o' Gemmell!"

* * * * *

My wife is still a theosophist. If it pleases her to think that she has
ascertained the nature and method of existence, I have nothing to say.
Sometimes I even look with envy upon her cheerful attitude toward the
approach of old age, her conviction that we are to have another
chance--many more chances--to do and to be that which we have failed in
doing and being, _this time_.

To judge of a tree by its fruits, there is, of course, no doubt that
Isabel, because of, or in spite of her Theosophy, has been

THE MAKING OF MARY.

EPILOGUE.

NURSE DEAN walked through the Pest House, adjoining the great hospital,
with the independent mien of the woman who is