had stooped to pluck and examine a flower, 'I made a point of never
discussing these matters with her. As no doubt you guess, life has
been rather an uphill journey with us. But the home must be guarded
against sordid cares to the last possible moment; nothing upsets me
more than the sight of those poor homes where wife and children are
obliged to talk from morning to night of how the sorry earnings
shall be laid out. No, no; women, old or young, should never have to
think about money.

The magnificent summer sunshine, and the western breeze that tasted
of ocean, heightened his natural cheeriness. Dr. Madden fell into a
familiar strain of prescience.

'There will come a day, Alice, when neither man nor woman is
troubled with such sordid care. Not yet awhile; no, no; but the day
will come. Human beings are not destined to struggle for ever like
beasts of prey. Give them time; let civilization grow. You know what
our poet says: "There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful
realm in awe--"'

He quoted the couplet with a subdued fervour which characterized the
man and explained his worldly lot. Elkanah Madden should never have
entered the medical profession; mere humanitarianism had prompted
the choice in his dreamy youth; he became an empiric, nothing more.
'Our poet,' said the doctor; Clevedon was chiefly interesting to him
for its literary associations. Tennyson he worshipped; he never
passed Coleridge's cottage without bowing in spirit. From the
contact of coarse actualities his nature shrank.

When he and Alice returned from their walk it was the hour of family