r daughter.
They were killed by a fall of the elevator at the hotel in which they
were living--one of those dire casualties which are liable to happen to
any one of us in these days of swift and complicated apparatus, but
which always seem remote from personal experience. This cruel blow of
fate put an end to all desire on the part of the bereaved husband and
father to remain in New York, whither he had come to live mainly to
please his women folk, as he called them. As soon as he recovered from
the bewilderment of the shock, Mr. Parsons sent for the architect who
had taken Littleton's place, and who had just begun the subservient task
of fusing diverse types of architecture in order to satisfy an American
woman's appetite for startling effect, and told him to arrange to
dispose of the lot and its immature walls to the highest bidder. His
precise plans for the future were still uncertain when Selma called on
him, and found comfort for her own miseries in ministering to his
solitude, but he expressed an inclination to return to his native
Western town, as the most congenial spot in which to end his days.
Selma, whose soul was full of Benham, suggested it as an alternative,
enlarging with contagious enthusiasm on its civic merits. The crushed
old man listened with growing attention. Already the germs of a plan for
the disposition of his large property were sprouting in his mind to
provide him with a refuge from despondency. He was a reticent man, not
in the habit of confiding his affairs until ready to act, but he paid
interested heed to Selma's eulogy of the bustling energy and rapid
growth of Benham. His preliminary thought had been that it would make
him happy to endow his native town, which was a small and inconspicuous
place, with a library building. But, as his visitor referred to the
attractions and admirable public spirit of the thriving city, which was
in the same State as his own home, he silently reasoned that residence
there need not interfere with his original project, and that he might
find a wide and more important field for his benefactions in a community
so representative of American ideas and principles.

Selma's visits of condolence to Mr. Parsons were interrupted by the
illness of her own husband. In reflecting, subsequently, she remembered
that he had seemed weary and out of sorts for several days, but her
conscious attention was invoked by his coming home early in the
afternoon, suffering from a viol