o blame in their quarrel of the night before--and the French
clock told its own story--still I could not help but feel that Rad
should have borne with him more patiently. The scene I had just
witnessed in the dining-room made me miserable. The Colonel was a proud
man and apology came hard for him, his son might at least have met him
half way.

Going upstairs to my room a few minutes later, I caught a glimpse
through the open door, of someone standing before the mantelpiece.
Thinking it was Radnor waiting to consult me, I hurried forward and
reached the threshold before I realized that it was the Colonel. He was
standing with folded arms before the picture, his eyes, gleaming from
under beetling brows, were devouring it hungrily, line by line. His face
was set rigidly with a look--whether of sorrow or loneliness or remorse,
I do not know; but I do know that it was the saddest expression I have
ever seen on any human face. It was as if, in a single illuminating
flash, he had looked into his own soul, and seen the ruin that his
ungoverned pride and passion had wrought against those he loved the
most.

So absorbed had he been with his thoughts, that he had not heard my
step. I turned and stole away, realizing suddenly that he was an old
man, broken, infirm; that his life with its influence for good or evil
was already at an end; he could never change his character now, no
matter how keenly he might realize his defects. Poor little Nannie's
wilfulness was at last forgiven, but the forgiveness was fifteen years
too late. Why could not that moment of insight have come earlier to
Colonel Gaylord, have come in time to save him from his mistakes?

I passed out of doors again, pondering somewhat bitterly the exigencies
of human life. The bright spring morning with its promise of youth and
joy seemed jarringly out of tune. The beauty was but surface deep, I
told myself pessimistically; underneath it was a cruel world. Before me
in the garden path, a jubilant robin was pulling an unhappy angle worm
from the ground, and a little farther on, under a blossoming apple tree,
the kitchen cat was breakfasting on a baby robin. The double spectacle
struck me as significant of life. I was casting about for some
philosophical truths to fit it, when my revery was interrupted by a
shout from Radnor.

I turned to find the horses--three of them--waiting at the portico
steps. Rad was going then after all. He and his father had evidently
patche