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320 self up with relief to a pleasant resignation. It must be good if you succeed; for then you must know you've done what was implanted in you to do, you've fulfilled some inscrutable purpose, you're tired and sink comfortably down to rest. I've succeeded a little and failed a good bit—so I get a double satisfaction out of dying."

He smiled with an abstracted amusement and without any conscious glance inviting Floyd to share it.

"Grandmother was always afraid that you would some time have the disappointment of failure," Floyd observed. "She would be proud of you if she could only see the way you've met it."

"Ah, it's the serenity of dying," his grandfather answered. "And to think what a dread of death I've had all my life! Whenever a hearse has passed in the street, I've thought with a chill of the day when I should be lying in it; whenever I've been to a funeral I've always imagined it to be my funeral—and that always made it so much sadder! I've been a good churchman, but when I knelt to pray, it was with the heart of an agnostic; and when I thought of death, I was always afraid. But now—I'm as much an agnostic as ever, I suppose, but I don't feel afraid. At the very worst I'm only going to lay myself down close by my wife's side and sleep. It was good to do that in life,—and I haven't any fear—of lying asleep by her side forever."

He was silent for a few moments; then he asked,—

"What are your plans, Floyd?"

"My plans?" Floyd repeated, not understanding.

"Yes—when you have your freedom. For of course you have n't ever yet been free. It's going to be quite different for you now."

"I'll try to keep the mills running," Floyd answered. "That's as far as I've got with my plans."

"Ah, I don't mean the mills—I wasn't thinking of them. I've been thinking how little I know about you except in relation to the mills. I'm afraid I've never