ehow. It seemed profane to entertain a doubt that
he would be able to do it even at the very last.

But Cotsdean had a miserable morning; he could do nothing. Minute by
minute, hour by hour, he waited to be called to the Parsonage; now and
then he went out to the door of his shop and looked out wistfully down
the street where it ended in the distance of Grange Lane. Was that the
maid from the Parsonage coming up across the road? Were these the young
ladies, who, though they knew nothing about the matter at issue, very
frequently brought a note, or message, from their father to Cotsdean?
But he was deceived in these guesses as well as in so many others. All
the world seemed out of doors that morning, but nobody came. The ruddy
sunshine shone full down the street, glorifying it with rays of warm
gold, and tinting the mists and clouds which lurked in the corners. It
had been heavy and overcast in the morning, but at noon the clouds had
cleared away, and that big red globe of fire had risen majestically out
of the mists, and everybody was out. But no one, except humble people in
the ordinary way of business, came to Cotsdean. Bushels of grain for
chickens, pennyworths of canary seed--oh! did any one think he could pay
a hundred pounds out of these?--a hundred pounds, the spending of which
had not been his, poor man; which was indeed spent long ago, and
represented luxuries past and over, luxuries which were not Cotsdean's.
Strange that a mere lump of money should live like this, long after it
was, to all intents and purposes, dead, and spent and gone!

Then came the hour of dinner, when his Sally called him to the room
behind the shop, from which an odour of bacon and fine big beans--beans
which were represented in his shop in many a sackful. He went in
unwillingly in obedience to her command, but feeling unable to eat, soon
left the table, sending the young man to fill his place, with whose
appetite no obstacle of care or thought interfered. Poor Cotsdean felt
that the smell of the dinner made him sick--though he would have liked
to eat had he been able--the smell of the bacon which he loved, and the
sight of the small children whom he loved still better, and poor Sally,
his wife, still red in the face from dishing it up. Sally was anxious
about her husband's want of appetite.

"What ails you, John?" she said, pathetically; "it wasn't as if you were
out last night, nor nothing o' that sort. A man as is sober like you
don