CHAPTER III.

SOME PEOPLE WHO FORGOT THE EVER-LISTENING EAR.


There were two other members of the Brower family who had attended
church that Sabbath morning. One was Mr. Brower, sen. And at the
season of dinner-getting he lay on the couch in the dining-room, with
the weekly paper in his hand, himself engaged in running down the
column of stock prices. He glanced up once, when the words in the
kitchen jarred roughly on his æsthetic ear, and said:

"Seems to me, if I were you, I would remember that to-day is Sunday,
and not be quite so sharp with my tongue."

Then his solemn duty done, he returned to his mental comparison of
prices. Also, there was Dwight Brower, a young fellow of nineteen or
so, who acted unaccountably. Instead of lounging around, according
to his usual custom, hovering between piazza and dining-room,
whistling softly, now and then turning over the pile of old magazines
between whiles, in search of something with which to pass away the
time, he passed through the hall on his return from church, and
without exchanging a word with anyone went directly to his room. Once
there, he turned the key in the lock, and then, as though that did
not make him feel quite enough alone, he slipped the little brass
bolt under it, and then began pacing the somewhat long and somewhat
narrow floor. Up and down, up and down, with measured step and
perplexed, anxious face, hands in his pockets, and his whole air one
of abandonment to more serious thought than boys of nineteen usually