A Poor Wise Man

her Aunt Elinor. There was an oil portrait of her in the library, a

ld stay in her rooms, and seldom appeared at meals. Never at dinner. As a child Lily used to think she had two Aunt Elinors, one

peak of either of th

in the house on

n young shoots, and on the streets that faced it the wealthy of the city built their homes, brick houses of square solidity, flush with brick pavements, which were carefully reddened on Saturday mornings. Beyond the pavements were cobble-stoned streets. Anthony Cardew was the first man in the city to have a rubber

p, sentimental little man, with two loves, his wife's memory and his wife's garden, which he still tended religiously between customers; and one ambition, his son. With the change from common to park, and the improvement in the neighborhood, he began to flo

gents reported him either mad or deeply scheming. They kept after him, offering much more t

ing among the white phlox of his little ba

he property complained that a little man, with wild eyes, often spent half the night standing across the street, quite still, staring over. If Anthony gave Doyle a thought, it was that progress and growt

ess the story of the Doyle curse on Anthony Cardew spread. Anthony heard it, and forgot it. But two days later he was dragged from hi

figure full of hatred, watching Anthony on the cobb

ial. "He was nothing to me-I did it to show old Cardew t

oralizing influence there, already a socialist with anarchical tendencies, and with the gift of influe

lways, used to stand in a window of the new house and watch the walls. Inside there were men who were shut away from all t

ted the sentries, rifle on shoulder, who walked their mon

e marble tops. And in the parlor was a square walnut piano, which Elinor hated because she had to sit there three hours each day, slipping on the top of the horsehair-covered stool, to

Jim. But one night-she was seventeen then, and Jim Doyle had served t

ed from the penitent

nthony Cardew. "Nothing ab

n saw th

rness. That was one reason why

do you mea

ad a way of good-naturedly ignoring his father's asperities, but Elinor was a suppressed, shy little thing, romantic, aloof, and fi

y Cardew. And he repeated, t

esult there was a shake-up in city politics, and a change in the penitentiary management, for Anthony Cardew had a heavy hand and a bitter memory. And a little cloud on his horizon grew and finally settled down over his life, turning it gray. Jim Doyle was among those who had escaped. For three

hite envelope. It said: "There are worse thin

and at last he began to forget. He was building the new furnaces up the river by that time. The era of structural steel for tall buildings was beginning, a

r hands. Miss Elinor needed this or that. He would check up the lists, sign his name to t

y he found the word, added

p at Fraulein. "There are si

thought-a r

rom among whom he had selected his wife, quiet-voiced, hard-riding, high-colored girls, who could hun

t ride ar

ere are bridle paths ne

vision. He saw the little grocer lying stark and huddled among th

about it," w

d was riding each day in the tan bark ring between its white-washed fences, while a me

ung man, looking older than he was, with heavy dark hair and a manner of repressed

ony received two letters from a distant city, a long, ecstatic but terrified one from his daught

boys' school for a time, and was dismissed for his radical views. He did brilliant editorial work on a Chicago newspaper, but now and then he intruded his slant-eyed personal views, and in the end he lost

ony had left, he took her into his home. But for many years he did not forgive her. He had one hope, that she would give Howard a son to carry on the line. Perhaps the happiest months of Grace Cardew's married life were

e to a woman. And Howard himself-old Anthony was pitilessly hard in his judgments-Howard was not

d not recognized her at first. He got her some port from the dining-room before he let her go into the library, and stood outside the door, his usually impassive face working, duri

ook one comprehensive glance at her thin

the way yo

knew I had no place else to go. He knew you wouldn't w

ewdly executed. During the next hour Anthony Cardew suffered, and made Elinor suffer, too. But at the end of that time he found himself confronting a curi

loved him. And that lee

ad smuggled out of the house the garments Elinor had worn into it. Grace had gone in the motor-one of the first in the city-and had sent back all sorts of lovely garme

ard that night, "I believe she

n and quartered," sa

sanctuary, but he refused t

me to leave him with you?" she

mean that you intend to g

and. He isn't

did I ever happen to have such a

nor, "it will be h

you. He married you to revenge himself on me. He sent you back here for the same reason. He'll t

go to him. He did not realize that Elinor had inherited from her quiet mother the dog-like quality of love in spite of cruelty. To Howard he stormed. He considered Elinor's inf

I understand i

l ignored Elinor, but he saw in her child the third generation of Cardews. Lily he had never counted. He took steps to give the child the Cardew name, and the fact was announc

erhaps if you had wanted me at home it would have been different. But it kills me to leave the baby. The only reason I can bring myself to do it is that, the way things are, I cannot give him the

tions for the baby's care. A wet nurse, for one thing. Grace read it with tears i

ambitions. For, deprived of its mother's milk, the baby died. Old Anthony some