to have him away, but it's such a comfort to know he keeps so well."
Mrs. MacWhirr drew breath. "The climate there agrees with him," she
added, beamingly, as if poor MacWhirr had been away touring in China for
the sake of his health.

Neither was the chief engineer coming home yet. Mr. Rout knew too well
the value of a good billet.

"Solomon says wonders will never cease," cried Mrs. Rout joyously at the
old lady in her armchair by the fire. Mr. Rout's mother moved slightly,
her withered hands lying in black half-mittens on her lap.

The eyes of the engineer's wife fairly danced on the paper. "That
captain of the ship he is in--a rather simple man, you remember,
mother?--has done something rather clever, Solomon says."

"Yes, my dear," said the old woman meekly, sitting with bowed silvery
head, and that air of inward stillness characteristic of very old
people who seem lost in watching the last flickers of life. "I think I
remember."

Solomon Rout, Old Sol, Father Sol, the Chief, "Rout, good man"--Mr.
Rout, the condescending and paternal friend of youth, had been the baby
of her many children--all dead by this time. And she remembered him best
as a boy of ten--long before he went away to serve his apprenticeship in
some great engineering works in the North. She had seen so little of him
since, she had gone through so many years, that she had now to retrace
her steps very far back to recognize him plainly in the mist of time.
Sometimes it seemed that her daughter-in-law was talking of some strange
man.