Waterbury evening Democrat., 1891-05-09

Esleeping-place
 He came back sorrowfully enough from the graves that day, and, stop ping, entered the house where the old
 lawyer had lived. The house-woman, by the dead masters instructions, had kept it waiting for him. It shook him not little to stand alone in that long, smoky room where the rugged, fiery old heart that loved him had ceased to
 beat. He did not go into the other
 rooms, the rooms where Maun had set his blood to quicker movement The woman's life had not matched his; he
 knew it now. Her swaying grace had passed into a beauteous memory, which
 to him was as the swaying boughs of
 trees beside the rythm of that other soul, which, like star out of the back ward streaming darkness had con- verged upon his own and won it. The next day he saw the will, that
 strange, laconic instrument of the old
 lawyers making. A streak of caustic humor ran through it not unlike sour honey. Judge Bower, despite his sighs at the thought of how little the legatee would profit from it, smiled at his old partners dying gibes. Then
 he told John Earling how he had been with their old friend in his last hour
 and of the meA-age he had left for him. ''Then," said the judge, with smile
 creeping over his sandy visage, ''the end came. But, bless you, the old
 man died with colors flying; he was
 true to himselfr'
 CHAPTER XXvL
 Joel Whitney was working assidu- ously at his dream this summer; build ing invisibly; slaving like beaver, he said to himself, and like the beaver, too, laboring mostly out of sight He was laying wires everywhere, and
 everywhere, when in view, his pro- fulgent front mirrored the wishes of his fellows. Very brotherly. very obliging, very benevolent, he was, without question, and everywhere he
 went an unctuous atmosphere went with him. He felt that he was very
 himself when alone, and often dropped the lid of his left eye expressively to
 the Goddess of Liberty surmounting the Capitol building in the picture which hung upon the wall of his inner
 office Not a few times, after looking longingly at that fatal ef1igy, he had
 brought his big hairy fist down upon his desk with a crash, and with thrill running to every corner of his enor-
 nous bulk, had exclaimed: ''This sum-
 mer I'm goin' to get therer'
 He dressed slightly better than for
 merly, and the glass was little oft
 cner at his lips; but then steam must
 be kept up, he said to himself, and all his enemies must be placated in this supreme season, and all debts of malice
 due him, together with all bitter dates, expunged from the calendar of his years.
 He met John Earling the next day after the young mans retarn, and a
 vail of darkness fell over his face, but it was quickly swept aside by dash of rather sheepish sunshine, and he hilariously and went puffing onward. He had thickened; the little stairway of chins that hid its foot behind his loose neck-cloth had added a step or two, and his tread was heavy. Still he had not nearly done with life, he thought; had been a driver of things from youth up; had conquered riches, no matter how, and now he would conquer honor, and as for that, too, no matter how.
 Through these days John Earrings life ran on like something parched, like something parted from the sweet enlivening touch of rain and dew. His little room up under the roof of Bower's Block. and the office of Bower x Earling, became again his almost exclusive haunts; the scenes of his toll, his study, his vigils, his sutferings, his dreams. A deal of bait had been laid in his way upon his return to Open stone with intent to toll him into the social stream, doubtless called out by | flo x-inX of h of Fowler's trial, his admittance to a partnership with Judge Bower and | the golden moth -allurlng aurora cast I over hlm by the old lawyers gift. But all was in vain; too much that was | somber encircled him, too much that l was bitter had flown over him; he
 could not be gay.
 l' By times he went out to the cottage 1 beyond the river where the sun was l burning at the worlds edge and sat l awhile on Captain Heaters porch. ] That floury person seemed never less 1 liable to start up and run than during
 these visits No hour to him seemed 1 quite so full of sociability and good l cheer as when, with the twins gambol- ing in the grass at the end of the house. and Ether sewing inside the l open window, he and John Earling sat 1 through long silenceS and watched the sun go down. Once Absalom made a l memorable statement, but only once. 1 Nothing but anger, or the sudden up- rising of some startling memory, ever
 lured him into language. He seemed
 afraid of it; action, and yes and no,
 were plenty he said for him. Upon
 the evening in question John Earling,
 leaning his head back against one ot
 the porch-posts, was dreamily watch
 ing the sun retire, when the voices o1
 the happy twins came floating in from
 among the apple-trees, and with the | sounds a sentence he had read some | where came into his mind, and he l murmured, half to himself and half to
 Absalom: '.Man loved the lute until he
 heard the voices of his children" 1 Absalom looked at him a long time l as if slowly penetrating the fine allu- l sion tbon ba Soi6 rathar oxoitad1v.