A Fool There Was

thousand-perhaps ten thousand; and it may well be, yet longer ago, even, than that. Yet it can be told that John Schuyler came from a long line of clea

they had cultivated for him those things of theirs that it were well to cultivate; and they had plucked ruthlessly from the gardens of heredity the weeds and tares that might have grown to check his growth. And, doing this, they had died,

tle; that there are other things of which we may sometime learn; that there are infinitely more things that not even the wisest of us may ever begin to understan

, we may but go back as far toward the

*

ortalled mansion of brownstone. It was a house not forbidding, but dignified. Its broad, plate-glass windows gazed out in silent, impassive tolerance upon the streams of social life that passed it of pleasant afternoons in Sprin

ere a trifle more narrow, and its portal a little less imposing. And across from that there lay a smaller house-a house of brick; and this was much more inviting than either of

e lived another boy; and across, in the little house of brick, there liv

h when he did, there came at the corners of mouth and eye, tiny, tell-tale lines which showed that beneath seriousness and silence, lay a fund of humor unharmed by continual drain. He was a t

lf, she gave freely wherein it were well to give. In her youth, she had been a beautiful girl; as a woman, she was stil

m Blake, the son of the one, was fond of Jack Schuyler, the son of the other. Blake, the elder, was a man rotund of figure, ruddy of complexion, great of heart. He laughed much; for he enjoyed much. He gave away much more than he could make; and

s such a blessing to Kate that she had little Kate to help her bear it all. And she had enough money, too; no one seemed to know how; for Jimmy Blair was a reckless giver and a poor business men. But John Stuyvesant Schuyler and Thomas Cathcart Blake had been executors. And that explained much to those who knew; for once every two or three months, these two men, so different and yet so alike, would stalk solemnly, side by side, across the street and, still solemnly, still side by side, would inform the violet-eyed widow of Jimmy Blair that the investments that her husband had made for her had been very fortunate and that there was in the bank for her the sum of many more hundreds of dollars than poor Jimmy himself cou

ee houses, and of th

ustr