Waterbury evening Democrat., 1892-02-19

sept passapI clean. assumed am aspert of dingier desuetude.
 As for Stanfleld, his features, his walk, his voice had all notably altered Though unconscious of 1t his drawn countenance betrayed a look of constant mingled weariness and expectancy. To his wife he was like a man whom some stealthy insanity keeps enslaving with subtle and threatening thraldom. Often he would show by his eyes a hungry sagerness which was like nothing so much as that of an eavesdropper crouched at the l5eyhole of a door when he hopes to hear tidings of tremendous import. And now to Martha a new and distressing quality became manifest in his behavior. This was seeming sym pathy with his uncle's deplorab1e mean ness. As the months amassed them selves into years he showed tendency to talk with Van Doren on the subject of investments in bonds and mortgages and rents. All day he would either aimlessly wander the streets or else hold converse with his kinsman of just this coldly mercenary kind.
 In vain Martha remonstrated. In vain she tried to rouse him from the in- toxication of his hard materialisms He would soften towards her for a few minutes. Don't get out of patience with me-" he would say. 'In little while now you'll find me such differ ent man. He can't last much longer. Don't you see? He hardly eats any thing, as it is. He scarcely ever even stirs out of doors. Why, it's touch-and- go with him; fool could see that"
 Martha would shudder. "Touch-and- gol" and he was now long past eighty. Stanfield himself had become a middle aged man, she, his wife, was no longer young; the children were ceasing to be children.
 One day, in his eighty-fourth year, Van Doren was taken violently ill. It was winter, and many cases of pneu- monia( a("infammation of the lungs, "they still called it then, in the year 1sS0) had broken out, and proved fatal. Against his will physician was summoned, and the verdict given his nephew was against his living twenty-four hours longer. Martha attended him with all the skill of a trained nurse. At this time her husbands conduct mortified her. He hung about the door of the sick chamber, with that eager look &C., centuated in his wan face. There was one day when it seemed as if Van Doren might at any instant breathe his last. During this period fits of delirium as- sailed him, in which he raved of money, money, nothing except money
 On the morrow he was surprisingly better Soon afterwards he began to recover, and within fortnight his health was more vigorous than before the seizure occurred. For days after wards it tortured Martha to observe her husbands face.
 And this,'' she thought, twas the strong, clear-headed, high-principled man married. Whoever first said that money was curse hit on the most pregnant of truths"
 The years went on. At eighty-eight Van Doren was feeble, bowed in figure, very dim of sight, and yet mentally as keen and alert as he had ever been. Perhaps he hugged his money a little closer and made those about him lit- tie more discomforted in consequence.
 Martha felt only too acutely now the ghastly contagion that her husband had caught. He still waited, but his wait ing had become 0 hideous mockery. What could he do with the money now, even if he survived his uncle? Nothing except hoard it as Van Doren. was do- ing. He had grown old before his time; he was prematurely wrinkled, and into his features had crept strin- gency of pallor, 8 covert ferceness, which meant unsuitable greed.
 Night after night he now did what to his wife was revolting thing. The game of solitaire which Van Doren had been wont to play with his gold coins had now become game in which his oephew joined. They would sit to-