eat voids and his nights were
lonelier still. The society of women remained a necessity of his
life; and the only woman in town, always bright, always full of
ideas, and always glad to see him (the main difficulty) was Mrs.
Conyers.

So that for years now he had been going regularly on Sunday
evenings. He kept up apologies to his conscience regularly also;
but it must have become clear that his conscience was not a fire to
make him boil; it was merely a few coals to keep him bubbling.

In this acceptance of her at the end of life there was of course
mournful evidence of his own deterioration. During the years
between being a young man and being an old one he had so far
descended toward her level, that upon renewing acquaintance with
her he actually thought that she had improved.

Youth with its white-flaming ideals is the great separator; by
middle age most of us have become so shaken down, on life's rough
road, to a certain equality of bearing and forbearing, that
miscellaneous comradeship becomes easy and rather comforting; while
extremely aged people are as compatible and as miserable as
disabled old eagles, grouped with a few inches of each other's
beaks and claws on the sleek perches of a cage.

This evening therefore, as he took his seat and looked across at
her, so richly dressed, so youthful, soft, and rosy, he all but
thanked heaven out loud that she was at home.

"Madam," he cried, "you are a wonderful and bewitching old
lady"--it was on the tip of his tongue to say "beldam."

"I know it," she replied briskly, "have you been so long in finding
it out?"

"It is a fresh discovery every time I come."

"Then you forget me in the meanwhile."

"I never forget you unless I am thinking of Miss Isabel. How is
she?"

"Not well."

"Then I'm not well! No one is well! Everybody must suffer if she
is suffering. The universe sympathizes."

"She is not ill. She is in trouble."

"But she must not be in trouble! She has done nothing to be in
trouble about. Who troubles her? What troubles her?"

"She will not tell."

"Ah!" he cried, checking himself gravely and dropping the subject.

She noted the decisive change of tone: it was not by this direct
route that she would be able to enter his confidence.

"What did you think of the sermon this morning?"

"The sermon on the prodigal? Well, it is too late for such sermons
to be levelled at me; and I never listen to those aimed at other
people."