tay on, perhaps, as you are."

"And the youngest life might drop, the day after your own. You can't
take it out of God's hand."

"I must either let it go by law, or will it--here and there. I know
enough whom it would help; but I want to invest, not spend it; to
invest it in a life--or lives--that will carry it on from where I
leave it. How shall I know?"

"He giveth it a body as it pleaseth Him," quoted Marmaduke Wharne,
thoughtfully. "I am English, you know, Oldways; I can't help
reverencing the claims of next of kin. Unless one is plainly shown
otherwise, it seems the appointment. How can we set aside his ways
until He clearly points us out his own exception?"

"My 'next' are two women whom I don't know, my niece's children. She
died thirty years ago."

"Perhaps you ought to know them."

"I know _about_ them; I've kept the run; but I've held clear of
family. They didn't need me, and I had no right to put it into their
heads they did, unless I fully meant"--

He broke off.

"They're like everybody else, Wharne; neither better nor worse, I
dare say; but the world is full of just such women. How do I know
this money would be well in their hands--even for themselves?"

"Find out."

"One of 'em was brought up by an Oferr woman!"

The tone in which he _commonized_ the name to a satiric general
term, is not to be written down, and needed not to be interpreted.

"The other is well enough," he went on, "and contented enough.
A doctor's widow, with a little property, a farm and two
children,--her older ones died very young,--up in New Hampshire. I
might spoil _her_; and the other,--well, you see as I said, I _don't
know_."

"Find out," said Marmaduke Wharne, again.

"People are not found out till they are tried."

"Try 'em!"

Mr. Oldways had been sitting with his head bent, thoughtfully, his
eyes looking down, his hands on the two stiff, old-fashioned arms of
his chair. At this last spondaic response from Marmaduke, he lifted
his eyes and eyebrows,--not his head,--and raised himself slightly
with his two hands pressing on the chair arms; the keen glance and
the half-movement were impulsively toward his friend.

"Eh?" said he.

"Try 'em," repeated Marmaduke Wharne. "Give God's way a chance."

Mr. Oldways, seated back in his chair again, looked at him intently;
made a little vibration, as it were, with his body, that moved his
head up and down almost imperceptibly, with a kind of gradual
assenting appr