r had given away great sums in charity. And it may
likewise be added in his favour that Mr. Bentley was glad to be rid of
his fortune. He had said so. He deeded his pew back to St. John's, and
protesting to his friends that he was not unhappy, he disappeared from
the sight of all save a few. The rising waters of Prosperity closed over
him. But Eliza Preston, now Mrs. Parr, was one of those who were never
to behold him again,--in this world, at least.

She was another conspicuous triumph in that career we are depicting.
Gradual indeed had been the ascent from the sweeping out of a store to
the marrying of a Preston, but none the less sure inevitable. For many
years after this event, Eldon Parr lived modestly in what was known as a
"stone-front" house in Ransome Street, set well above the sidewalk, with
a long flight of yellow stone steps leading to it; steps scrubbed with
Sapoho twice a week by a negro in rubber boots. There was a stable with
a tarred roof in the rear, to be discerned beyond the conventional side
lawn that was broken into by the bay window of the dining-room. There,
in that house, his two children were born: there, within those inartistic
walls, Eliza Preston lived a life that will remain a closed book forever.
What she thought, what she dreamed, if anything, will never be revealed.
She did not, at least, have neurasthenia, and for all the world knew, she
may have loved her exemplary and successful husband, with whom her life
was as regular as the Strasburg clock. She breakfasted at eight and
dined at seven; she heard her children's lessons and read them Bible
stories; and at half past ten every Sunday morning, rain or shine, walked
with them and her husband to the cars on Tower Street to attend service
at St. John's, for Mr. Parr had scruples in those days about using the
carriage on the Sabbath.

She did not live, alas, to enjoy for long the Medicean magnificence of
the mansion facing the Park, to be a companion moon in the greater orbit.
Eldon Part's grief was real, and the beautiful English window in the
south transept of the church bears witness to it. And yet it cannot be
said that he sought solace in religion, so apparently steeped in it had
he always been. It was destiny that he should take his place on the
vestry; destiny, indeed, that he should ultimately become the vestry
as well as the first layman of the diocese; unobtrusively, as he had
accomplished everything else in life, in spite of Pres