relieved, and that the race might from age to age be improved. But
I now doubted myself, and feared lest that vanity of which Eva had
spoken to me had overcome me. With my wife and son I could still be
brave,--even with Crasweller I could be constant and hard; but to be
obdurate with Eva was indeed a struggle. And when she told me that
I did so through pride, I found it very hard to bear. And yet it was
not that I was angry with the child. I became more and more attached
to her the more loudly she spoke on behalf of her father. Her very
indignation endeared me to her, and made me feel how excellent she
was, how noble a wife she would be for my son. But was I to give way
after all? Having brought the matter to such a pitch, was I to give
up everything to the prayers of a girl? I was well aware even then
that my theory was true. The old and effete should go, in order that
the strong and manlike might rise in their places and do the work of
the world with the wealth of the world at their command. Take the
average of mankind all round, and there would be but the lessening of
a year or two from the life of them all. Even taking those men who
had arrived at twenty-five, to how few are allotted more than forty
years of life! But yet how large a proportion of the wealth of the
world remains in the hands of those who have passed that age, and are
unable from senile imbecility to employ that wealth as it should be
used! As I thought of this, I said to myself that Eva's prayers might
not avail, and I did take some comfort to myself in thinking that all
was done for the sake of posterity. And then, again, when I thought
of her prayers, and of those stern words which had followed her
prayers,--of that charge of pride and vanity,--I did tell myself that
pride and vanity were not absent.

She was gone now, and I felt that she must say and think evil things
of me through all my future life. The time might perhaps come, when
I too should have been taken away, and when her father should long
since have been at rest, that softer thoughts would come across her
mind. If it were only possible that I might go, so that Jack might
be married to the girl he loved, that might be well. Then I wiped my
eyes, and went forth to make arrangements for the morrow.

The morning came,--the 30th of June,--a bright, clear, winter
morning, cold but still genial and pleasant as I got into the
barouche and had myself driven to Little Christchurch. To say that