jauntiness came into his step, as though he did not include
himself among those who were not "gay." "Yet he seems to be content.
I've known him come down to the church when Lois was singing, and sit a
whole hour, apparently meditating. He is no doubt a very thoughtful young
man."

"Bah!" answered Mr. Dale, "he comes to hear Lois sing."

Mr. Denner gave a little start. "Oh," he said--"ah--I had not thought of
that." But when he left Mr. Dale, and slipped into the shadows of the
Lombardy poplars on either side of his white gate-posts, Mr. Denner
thought much of it,--more with a sort of envy of Mr. Forsythe's future
than of Lois. "He will marry, some time (perhaps little Lois), and then
he will have a comfortable home."

Mr. Denner sat down on the steps outside of his big white front door,
which had a brass knocker and knob that Mary had polished until the paint
had worn away around them. Mr. Denner's house was of rough brick, laid
with great waste of mortar, so that it looked as though covered with many
small white seams. Some ivy grew about the western windows of the
library, but on the north and east sides it had stretched across the
closed white shutters, for these rooms had scarcely been entered since
little Willie Denner's mother died, five years ago. She had kept house
for her brother-in-law, and had brought some brightness into his life;
but since her death, his one servant had had matters in her own hands,
and the house grew more lonely and cheerless each year. Mr. Denner's
office was in his garden, and was of brick, like his house, but nearer
the road, and without the softening touch of ivy; it was damp and
mildewed, and one felt instinctively that the ancient law books must have
a film of mould on their battered covers.

The lawyer's little face had a pinched, wistful look; the curls of his
brown wig were hidden by a tall beaver hat, with the old bell crown and
straight brim; it was rarely smooth, except on Sundays, when Mary brushed
it before he went to church. He took it off now, and passed his hand
thoughtfully over his high, mild forehead, and sighed; then he looked
through one of the narrow windows on either side of the front door, where
the leaded glass was cut into crescents and circles, and fastened with
small brass rosettes; he could see the lamp Mary had left for him,
burning dimly on the hall table, under a dark portrait of some Denner,
long since dead. But he still sat upon what he called his "do