en kept his griefs, racial and
individual, for his own use. To the men about him in the offices and
the shops he presented day after day, year after year, an imperturbable
cheeriness of demeanor. He had been always fortunate in the selection of
lieutenants and chief helpers. Two of these had grown now into partners,
and were almost as much a part of the big enterprise as Jeremiah
himself. They spoke often of their inability to remember any unjust or
petulant word of his--much less any unworthy deed. Once they had seen
him in a great rage, all the more impressive because he said next to
nothing. A thoughtless fellow told a dirty story in the presence of
some apprentices; and Madden, listening to this, drove the offender
implacably from his employ. It was years now since any one who knew him
had ventured upon lewd pleasantries in his hearing. Jokes of the sort
which women might hear he was very fond of though he had not much humor
of his own. Of books he knew nothing whatever, and he made only the most
perfunctory pretence now and again of reading the newspapers.

The elder son Michael was very like his father--diligent, unassuming,
kindly, and simple--a plain, tall, thin red man of nearly thirty, who
toiled in paper cap and rolled-up shirt-sleeves as the superintendent in
the saw-mill, and put on no airs whatever as the son of the master.
If there was surprise felt at his not being taken into the firm as a
partner, he gave no hint of sharing it. He attended to his religious
duties with great zeal, and was President of the Sodality as a matter
of course. This was regarded as his blind side; and young employees
who cultivated it, and made broad their phylacteries under his notice,
certainly had an added chance of getting on well in the works. To some
few whom he knew specially well, Michael would confess that if he
had had the brains for it, he should have wished to be a priest. He
displayed no inclination to marry.

The other son, Terence, was some eight years younger, and seemed the
product of a wholly different race. The contrast between Michael's sandy
skin and long gaunt visage and this dark boy's handsome, rounded face,
with its prettily curling black hair, large, heavily fringed brown
eyes, and delicately modelled features, was not more obvious than their
temperamental separation. This second lad had been away for years at
school,--indeed, at a good many schools, for no one seemed to manage
to keep him long. He had