A Daughter of Fife

"You are a quick observer, Mary."

"The heart has its oracles as well as the head, uncle."

She spoke sadly, and John Campbell looked with a kindly curiosity at her.

He felt almost certain that she had suffered a keen disappointment, as

well as himself. "But she would die before she would make a complaint," he

thought, "and I may learn a lesson from her. It is a weak soul that is not

capable of its own consolation. She has evidently determined to make the

best of things beyond her sorting."

After a short silence, Mary slipped quietly from the room. John Campbell

scarcely noticed her departure. He had the heartache, and men of sixty

have it far worse than men of twenty. When their hopes fail, they have no

time left, often no ability left to renew them. To make the best of things

was all that now remained; and he was the more able to do this because of

Mary's promise to him. But it is always hard to feel in the evening that

our day's work has been unsuccessful, and that resignation, and not

success, must make the best of the hours remaining.

As he mused the storm, which had threatened all the afternoon, broke. The

swash and patter of the rain against the windows, and the moaning of the

trees on the lawn, made a dreary accompaniment to his melancholy musings.

It grew chill, and a footman entered, put a match to the laid fuel, and

lighted the gas. Then John Campbell made an effort to shake off the

influence which oppressed him. He laid down the ivory paper knife, which

he had been turning mechanically in his fingers, rose, and went to the

window. How dark it was! The dripping outlook made him shiver, and he

turned back to the slowly burning fire. But solitude and inaction became

unbearable. "Regretting never mended wrong; if I cannot get the best, I

can try for the second best. And perhaps the lad is not beyond reasoning

with." Then he rose, and with a decided air and step went straight to

Allan's room.