her good-night. Josephine
was no longer a member of the family. In a number of ways expenses
had been retrenched. Harry would not admit it, and Ida did not seem
aware of it, but his health was slowly but surely failing. That very
day he had consulted a specialist in New York, taking his turn in the
long line of waiting applicants in the office. When he came out he
had a curious expression on his face, which made more than one of the
other patients, however engrossed in their own complaints, turn
around and look after him. He looked paler than when he had entered
the office, but not exactly cast down. He had rather a settled
expression, as of one who had come in sight, not of a goal of
triumph, but of the end of a long and wearisome journey. In these
days Harry Edgham was so unutterably weary, he drove himself to his
work with such lashes of spirit, that he was almost incapable of
revolt against any sentence of fate. There comes a time to every one,
to some when young, to some when old, that too great a burden of
labor, or of days, renders the thought of the last bed of earth
unterrifying. The spirit, overcome with weariness of matter,
droops earthward with no rebellion. Harry, who had gotten his
death-sentence, went out of the doctor's office and hailed his
ferry-bound car, and realized very little difference in his attitude
from what he had done before. He had still time before him, possibly
quite a long time. He thought of leaving Ida and the little one and
Maria, but he had a feeling as if he were beginning the traversing of
a circle which would in the end bring him back, rather than of
departure. It was as if he were about to circumnavigate life itself.
Suddenly, however, his forehead contracted. Material matters began to
irritate him. He thought of Maria, and how slight a provision he had
made for her. His life was already insured for the benefit of Ida.
Ida would have that and her widow's share. Little Evelyn would also
have her share of his tiny estate, which consisted of nothing more
than his house and lot in Edgham and a few hundreds in the bank, and
poor Maria would have nothing except the paltry third remaining. When
Maria, sitting alone with him in the parlor, announced her intention
of fitting herself for a teacher, he viewed her with quick interest.
It was the evening of the very day on which he had consulted the
specialist.

"Let me see, dear," he returned; "how many years more have you at the
academy?