Old Mrs. Colton had not moved a muscle since the night of the murder.  She lay looking straight at the ceiling, and in her eyes was an expression that seemed constantly to repeat, “My body is dead, but my mind is alive.”  Once every week the pastor of her church came to see her.  He was an old man, threatened with palsy, and had long ago ceased to find pleasure in the appetites and vanities of this life.  He came on Sunday, just before the time for evening services in the church, and kneeling at the old woman’s chair, which he placed near her bedside, lifted his shaking voice in prayer.  It was a touching sight, one infirmity pleading for another, palsy praying for paralysis; but upon these devotions Brooks began to look with a frown.

“What is the use of it?” he asked, speaking to his wife.  “If a celebrated specialist can’t do her any good, I know that an old man’s prayer can’t.”

“We ought not to deny her anything,” the wife answered.

“And we ought not to inflict her with anything,” the husband replied.

“Prayer was never an infliction to her.”

“But this old man’s praying is an infliction to the rest of us.”

“Not to me; and you needn’t hear him.”

“I can’t help it if I’m at home.”

“But you needn’t be at home when he comes.”

“Oh, I suppose I could go over and stand on the lake shore, but it would be rather unpleasant this time of year.”

“There are other places you can go.”

“Oh, I suppose so.  Doesn’t make any difference to you, of course, where I go.”

“Not much,” she answered.

The Witherspoon family was gathered one evening in the mother’s room.  It was Mrs. Witherspoon’s birthday, and it was a home-like picture, this family group, with the mother sitting in a rocking-chair, fondly looking about and giving the placid heed of love to Henry whenever he spoke.  On the walls were hung the portraits of early Puritans, the brave and rugged ancestors of Uncle Louis and Uncle Harvey, and all her mother’s people, who were dark.

Ellen had been imitating a Miss Miller, who, it was said, was making a determined set at Henry, and Witherspoon was laughing at the aptness of his daughter’s mimicry.

“I must confess,” said Mrs. Witherspoon, slowly rocking herself, “that I don’t see anything to laugh at.  Miss Miller is an exceedingly nice girl, I’m sure, but I don’t think she is at all suited to my son.  She giggles at everything, and Henry is too sober-minded for that sort of a wife.”

“But marriage would probably cure her giggling,” Witherspoon replied, slyly winking at Henry.  “To a certain kind of a girl there is nothing that so inspires a giggle as the prospect of marriage, but marriage itself is the greatest of all soberers—­it sometimes removes all traces of the previous intoxication.”

“Now, George, what is the use of talking that way?” She rarely called him George.  “You know as well as you know anything that I didn’t giggle.  Of course I was lively enough, but I didn’t go about giggling as Miss Miller does.”