Page 49 (1/2)

Haward seated hireat chair, and looked around hihtful and melancholy ss upon her fingers and her silvery laughter were all that dwelt in

his mind, and now only the sound of that ered in the room But his father had died upon that bed, and beside

the dead man, between the candles at the head and the candles at the foot,

he had sat the night through The curtains were half drawn, and in their

shadow his iain that cold, inaniht, and how old he had thought himself

as he watched beside the dead, chilled by the cold of the crossed hands,

awed by the silence, half frighted by the shadows on the wall; now filled

with natural grief, noith surreptitious and shaed estate,--yesterday son and dependent, to-day heir and h and the smile were not for the dead father, but for

his own dead youth, for the unjaded freshness of the , for the

world that had been, once upon a ti in his seat, his eyes fell upon thebetween the table and the door "Well, friend?" he

demanded

The man came a step or two nearer His hat was in his hand, and his body

was obsequiously bent, but there was no discomposure in his lifeless voice