, through her tears, "The bread she gave us was doubly
welcome, for it was given cheerfully."

I felt that my energies would never again arouse themselves. I cannot
say that the thought alarmed me; I merely felt conscious that my mental
powers were either failing or torpid. For days I could not collect my
thoughts, and led a dull, listless, inanimate life. My children were
about me, but their sympathy did not help me. Ernst's evil letter was
the only thing that had any effect on me.

I could not realize that what had once been life, was now nothing more
than a thought, a memory.

When I heard some one coming up the steps, I always thought it must be
she returning and saying, "I could not stay away; I must return to you,
you are so lonely. The children are good and kind, but we two cannot
remain apart." And then I would start with affright, when I noticed how
my thoughts had been wandering.

When I walked in the street, I felt as if I were but half of myself. As
long as she was with me I had always felt myself rich, for my home
contained her who was best of all.

No one can know what a wealth of soul had been mine; through her, and
with her, I had felt myself moving in a higher spiritual sphere. But
now I felt so broken, so bereft, as if my entire intellectual
possessions had gone to naught. The children are yet here; but they are
for themselves. My wife alone was here for me--was indeed my other
self.

Before that, when I awakened of a morning it was always a pleasure to
feel conscious of life itself; but now with every morrow I had to begin
anew and try to learn how to reconcile myself to my loss. But that is a
lesson I shall never learn. My sun had gone down; I did not care to
live any longer, because all that I experienced seemed to come in
between her and me, and I did not wish to live but in thoughts of her.

I looked at her lamp, her table, her work-basket--all these had
survived her, are still here, and will remain. The one clock was never
wound up afterward. From that day, there was but one clock heard in our
room.

I can now understand why the ancients buried the working implements
with their dead.

I looked out of the window. The neighbors' children were in the street;
their noise grated on my ears. I could not but think how she once said
to me, "Why should it annoy us? Is it anything more than the singing of
the birds? The children are like so many innocent birds."

All things remind me of her. I