“Grandfather,” she said again, touching him, “oh, grandfather, wake up!”

CHAPTER XX

LIFE’S IRONIES

When he came down to breakfast next morning, Abel heard of Reuben’s death from his mother.

“Well, you can’t tell who’s goin’ to be the next,” she concluded grimly, as she poured the coffee.

In spite of her austere manner and her philosophical platitude, Sarah was more moved in her heart than she had dared to confess.  From the moment that she had heard of Reuben’s death—­when she had gone over with some of her mourning to offer Molly—­she had ceased to think of him as an old man, and her mind had dwelt upon him as one who had been ruthlessly cut off in his prime—­as he might have been had the end come some thirty or forty years before.  Memory, that great miracle worker, had contrived to produce this illusion; and all Sarah’s hard common sense could not prevent her feeling an indignant pity because Reuben’s possibilities of happiness had been unfulfilled.  Trouble after trouble and never anything to make up for them, and then to go this way while he was resting!  “It’s like that,” she thought bitterly to herself, alluding to life.  “It’s like that!” And it seemed to her suddenly that the whole of existence was but a continual demonstration of the strong religious dogmas on which her house of faith had been reared.  When you looked around you, she thought, with triumph, there wasn’t any explanation of the seeming injustice except original sin.  There was a strange comfort in this conviction, as though it represented the single reality to which she could cling amid the mutable deceptions of life.  “Thar wouldn’t be any sense in it if ’twarn’t for that,” she would sometimes say to herself, as one who draws strength from a secret source of refreshment.

In Abel the news of Reuben’s death awoke a different emotion, and his first thought was of Molly.  He longed to comfort her in his arms, and the memory of the quarrel of yesterday and even of the kiss that led to it seemed to increase rather than diminish this longing.

Rising from his untasted breakfast, he hurriedly swallowed a cup of coffee and took up his hat.

“I am going to see Molly, mother; would you like to send a message?”

Blossom, who was gazing out of the window with her eyes full of dreams, turned at his words.

“Give her my love, Abel,” she said.

“Tell her he was a good man and had fewer sins to his account than most of us,” added Sarah.

“Did you know, Abel, that old Mr. Jonathan left her ten thousand dollars a year as long as she lives with the Gays?” asked Blossom, coming over to where he stood.

He stared at her in amazement.  “Where on earth did you hear that?” he asked.

A flush reddened her face.

“Somebody told me.  I forget just who it was,” she replied.