he's made that way,
Phrasie. He can't help it, any more than I can help flinging law-books on
the floor and running off to the country to have a good time. You know as
well as I do that he hasn't had much joy out of life; that he'd like to
be different, only he doesn't know how."

"I can't see that it takes much knowledge to treat a wife and son like
human beings," Euphrasia retorted; "that's only common humanity. For a
man that goes to meetin' twice a week, you'd have thought he'd have
learned something by this time out of the New Testament. He's prayed
enough in his life, goodness knows!"

Now Euphrasia's ordinarily sharp eyes were sharpened an hundred fold by
affection; and of late, at odd moments during his visits, Austen had
surprised them fixed on him with a penetration that troubled him.

"You don't seem to fancy the tarts as much as you used to," she would
remark. "Time was when you'd eat three and four at a sittin'."

"Phrasie, one of your persistent fallacies is, that I'm still a boy."

"You ain't yourself," said Euphrasia, ignoring this pleasantry, "and you
ain't been yourself for some months. I've seen it. I haven't brought you
up for nothing. If he's troubling you, don't you worry a mite. He ain't
worth it. He eats better than you do."

"I'm not worrying much about that," Austen answered, smiling. "The Judge
and I will patch it up before long--I'm sure. He's worried now over these
people who are making trouble for his railroad."

"I wish railroads had never been invented," cried Euphrasia. "It seems to
me they bring nothing but trouble. My mother used to get along pretty
well in a stage-coach."

One evening in September, when the summer days were rapidly growing
shorter and the mists rose earlier in the valley of the Blue, Austen, who
had stayed late at the office preparing a case, ate his supper at the
Ripton House. As he sat in the big dining room, which was almost empty,
the sense of loneliness which he had experienced so often of late came
over him, and he thought of Euphrasia. His father, he knew, had gone to
Kingston for the night, and so he drove up Hanover Street and hitched
Pepper to the stone post before the door. Euphrasia, according to an
invariable custom, would be knitting in the kitchen at this hour; and at
the sight of him in the window, she dropped her work with a little,
joyful cry.

"I was just thinking of you!" she said, in a low voice of tenderness
which many people would not