The Second Generation

intrusions, the services, the burial-all those barbarous customs that stretch on the rack those who really love the dead whom society compels them publicly to mourn-had lef

ng so long as she could keep that stream going-the stream whose sound at least made the voic

al little laugh, "I thought it was your father coming home to dinner!" Then from her throat issued a stifled cry like nothing but a cry borne up to the surface from

s steadies an uneasy horse; and he was monotonously and sonorously rolling off paragraph after paragraph. Except the judge, young Hargrave was the only one there who clearly understood what those wordy provisions meant. As the reading progressed Dory's face flushed a deep red which slowly faded, leaving

ndness of their character, and in their capacity to do and to be. I feel they will be better off without the wealth which would tempt my

e Torrey in puzzled wonder. The judge read on, read the names of signer and witnesses, then laid the will down

seven thousand a year to the widow for life; two thousand a year to Adelaide; five thousand in cash to Arthu

asked, breaking the silence

ne s

lasses? "Then I guess I'll be going. It won't be n

steps. Outside, he wiped the streaming sweat from his forehead. "It wasn't my fault," he muttered, as if some one were accusing him. Then, a

is brain had stopped thinking. Adelaide next noted Dory, and grew cold from head to foot. All in a rush it came over her how much she had relied upon her prospective inheritance, how little upon herself. What would Dory think of her now? And Ross-what a triumph for him, what a narrow escape! Had he suspected? Had others in the town known that of which they of the family were in complete ignorance? Oh, the horror

, his features ablaze with all the evil passions in his untrained and unrestrained nature. "You knew!" h

she would not have

ed, clasping her hands and

. "Yes, your guilty face admits it. But I'll undo your work. I'll break the wi

her children. "Arthur!" she said, and her voice was quiet and solemn. "Your father is dead." She drew herself up, and facing her son in her widow's black, seemed taller than he. "If I had needed any proof t

ows and call him if they wished. Arthur hung his head before his mother's gaze. "It isn

oice, which rose shrill, was the shriek of the tempest within her-"and I know now what made him break so sudden. I noticed you both driftin' off into foolishness, ashamed of the ways of your parents, ashamed of your parents, too. But I didn't give no attention

? Grief and love and willingness to carry out your dead father's last wishes? No! You came thinking of how you were

exclaime

her, before her outraged love for her outraged dead. "Tak

laide. At that moment she could not think of this w

only of his money. I've heard you say children owe nothing to their parents, that parents owe everything to the children. Well, that's so. But it don't mean what you think. It don't mean that parents ought to ruin their children. And your pa didn't spare himself to

cried Arthur, rush

ace where he had been, dropped into a

k, mother," e

e spoke agin' my dead! I'll not f

ng bore children that trample on their father's grave. I'll put you both out of the house-" and she started up and her voice rose to a shriek. "Yes-I'll put you both ou

ith uncertain steps went into th