Page:Terminations (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1895).djvu/225

Rh of course, he told her, too, a bequest of money to keep it up in undiminished state. Of the administration of this fund he would appoint her superintendent, and, if the spirit should move her, she might kindle a taper even for him.

"And who will kindle one even for me?" she gravely enquired.

 

 VI

was always in mourning, yet the day he came back from the longest absence he had yet made her appearance immediately told him she had lately had a bereavement. They met on this occasion as she was leaving the church, so that, postponing his own entrance, he instantly offered to turn round and walk away with her. She considered, then she said: "Go in now, but come and see me in an hour." He knew the small vista of her street, closed at the end and as dreary as an empty pocket, where the pairs of shabby little houses, semi-detached but indissolubly united, were like married couples on bad terms. Often, however, as he had gone to the beginning, he had never gone beyond. Her aunt was dead—that he immediately guessed, as well as that it made a difference; but when she had for the first time mentioned her number he found himself, on her leaving him, not a little agitated by this sudden