Audrey

Haward seated himself in the great chair, and looked around him with a

thoughtful and melancholy smile. He could not clearly remember his mother.

The rings upon her fingers and her silvery laughter were all that dwelt in

his mind, and now only the sound of that merriment floated back to him and

lingered in the room. But his father had died upon that bed, and beside

the dead man, between the candles at the head and the candles at the foot,

he had sat the night through. The curtains were half drawn, and in their

shadow his imagination laid again that cold, inanimate form. Twelve years

ago! How young he had been that night, and how old he had thought himself

as he watched beside the dead, chilled by the cold of the crossed hands,

awed by the silence, half frighted by the shadows on the wall; now filled

with natural grief, now with surreptitious and shamefaced thoughts of his

changed estate,--yesterday son and dependent, to-day heir and master!

Twelve years! The sigh and the smile were not for the dead father, but for

his own dead youth, for the unjaded freshness of the morning, for the

world that had been, once upon a time.

Turning in his seat, his eyes fell upon the man who had followed him, and

who was now standing between the table and the door. "Well, friend?" he

demanded.

The man came a step or two nearer. His hat was in his hand, and his body

was obsequiously bent, but there was no discomposure in his lifeless voice

and manner. "I stayed to explain my presence in the house, sir," he said.

"I am a lover of reading, and, knowing my weakness, your overseer, who

keeps the keys of the house, has been so good as to let me, from time to

time, come here to this room to mingle in more delectable company than I

can choose without these walls. Your Honor doubtless remembers yonder

goodly assemblage?" He motioned with his hand toward a half-opened door,

showing a closet lined with well-filled bookshelves.

"I remember," replied Haward dryly. "So you come to my room alone at

night, and occupy yourself in reading? And when you are wearied you

refresh yourself with my wine?" As he spoke he clinked together the bottle

and glass that stood beside the books.

"I plead guilty to the wine," answered the intruder, as lifelessly as

ever, "but it is my only theft. I found the bottle below, and did not

think it would be missed. I trust that your Honor does not grudge it to a

poor devil who tastes Burgundy somewhat seldomer than does your Worship.

And my being in the house is pure innocence. Your overseer knew that I

would neither make nor meddle with aught but the books, or he would not

have given me the key to the little door, which I now restore to your

Honor's keeping." He advanced, and deposited upon the table a large key.