Page:Martha Spreull by Zachary Fleming.pdf/136

124 me. My old housekeeper, whose mortal remains were, six months ago, laid in their last abode by my own hands, was a woman who knew her place—she never presumed. I could sit at the breakfast table and take my coffee, with a book in my hand or a newspaper propped against the toast rack before me as long as I liked, and she would wait patiently without a word till I had drained the grounds of my cup—the signal for rising—before she would stir from the table. But all that is altered now. A strange mutation has taken place, I care for neither book nor newspaper. The morning meal seems not to need such concomitants. Even the air of the breakfast room has a refreshing and inviting callerness that cheers the spirit and im- proves the appetite. Pleasant and suggestive converse takes the place of the book and the newspaper; the memories of the morning serve to make the day happy, and stimulate the desire for an early return home. We have but one trouble, that is William Warstle, the bursar. In business he is getting on fairly enough, but he is full of restlessness in regard to the fundamental doctrines of our religious faith. The grand doctrine of foreordination is now his great stumbling-block. He has appealed to me as a lawyer, whether this belief is consistent with the exercise of free-will. The question, I have told him, is outwith the bounds of statutory law. My wife, however, with her boundless forbearance, has turned up her standar