He allowed her to take them from him.

"It's mamma," said Phil. "How dear they are!" she murmured softly.

As she turned the prints to catch the dimming light, he watched her,
standing inertly with his elbow on the shelf.

"Isn't it odd that I never saw any of these! even Uncle Amy hasn't
them."

She bent over the print of the child, who stood with a hoop, smiling as
though in delight at her belated rescue from oblivion.

"You were going to give these to me, weren't you, daddy?" She was
running over the others. One that showed the mature woman in a fur cape
long out of fashion and with a fur cap perched on her head, held her
longest.

"If you want them," said her father, "you shall have them, of course. I
will touch them up a bit in the morning."

"Maybe," said Phil looking at him quickly, "it is better not to keep
them. Was it one of these plates that broke?"

"Yes," said Kirkwood; "it was this one"; and he indicated the picture
that revealed his wife in her young womanhood.

It was over this that he had been dreaming alone in the dim gallery when
she had interrupted his reverie. The pity of it all, the bleak
desolation of his life, smote her sharply, now that she had caught a
glimpse of the ghosts scampering off down the long vistas. With an
abrupt gesture she flung aside the melancholy reminder of his tragedy.

"Dear old daddy!" She held him in her strong arms and kissed him.

She felt that all these spectres must be driven back into their world
of shadows, and she seized the prints and tore them until only little
heaps of paper remained and these she scattered upon the floor.

"Are these the plates?"

He indicated them with a nod. One after the other they crashed echoingly
in the bare gallery. She accomplished the destruction swiftly and with
certainty. One that fell on edge undamaged she broke with her heel.

Then she took a match from his pocket and lit the gas in one of the old
burners. The light revealed a slight smile on his face, but it was not
his accustomed smile of good humor. His eyes were very sad and gentle.

"Thank you, dear old Phil! I guess that's the best way, after all. It
must be time to go home now. Are you ready?"

"Wait here a minute--you had better pull down the windows and lock up.
I'll close the office and you can meet me on the landing."

She went out, closing the door, and ran down to the office, where
Charles Holton stood at the window looking out upon Main Street, w