rth-rug and wound his watch, still
appearing to gaze at something far away.

CHAPTER XXIII.

HENRY'S INCONSISTENCY.

Snorting March came as if blown in off the icy lake, and oozy April
fell from the clouds. How weary we grow of winter in a cold land, and
how loath is winter to permit the coming of spring! May stole in from
the south. There came a warm rain, and the next morning strips of
green were stretched along the boulevards.

Nature had unrolled double widths of carpet during the night, and at
sunset a yellow button lay where the ground had been harsh so long--a
dandelion. An old man, in whom this blithe air stirred a recollection
of an amative past, sat on a bench in the park, watching the
flirtations of thrill-blooded youth, and pale mothers, housed so long
with fretful children, turned loose their cares upon the grass. It was
a lolling-time, a time to lose one's self in the blue above, or
sweetly muse over the green below.

One night a hot wind came, and the nest morning was summer. The horse
that had drawn coal during the winter, now hitched to an ice wagon,
died in the street. The pavements throbbed, the basement restaurants
exhaled a sickening air, and through the grating was blown the
cellar's cool and mouldy breath; and the sanitary writer on the
editorial page cried out: "Boil your drinking-water!"

It was Witherspoon's custom, during the heated term, to take his wife
and his daughter to the seaside, and to return when the weather there
became insufferably hot. It was supposed that Henry would go, but when
the time came he declared that he had in view a piece of work that
most not be neglected. Witherspoon recognized the urgency of no work
except his own. "What, you can't go!" he exclaimed. "What do you mean
by 'can't go'?"

"I mean simply that it is not convenient for me to get away at this
time."

"And is it your scheme now to act entirely upon your own convenience?
Can't you sometimes pull far enough away from yourself to forget your
own convenience?"

"Oh, yes, but I can't very well forget that on this occasion it is
almost impossible for me to get away. Of course you don't understand
this, and I am afraid that if I should try I couldn't make it very
clear to you."

"Oh, you needn't make any explanation to me, I assure you. I had
planned an enjoyment for your mother and sister, and if you desire to
interfere with it, I have nothing more to say."

"I have no business that shall i