still sat sunken in her strange apathy of melancholy or exhaustion,
it was difficult to tell which, while Jerome spaded and dug in the
garden, in the fury of zeal which he had inherited from her.

Elmira had dinner ready early, and called Jerome. When he went in he
found her trying to induce her mother to swallow a bowl of gruel.
"Won't you take it, mother?" she was pleading, with tears in her
eyes; but her mother only lifted one hand feebly and motioned it
away; she would not raise her head or open her eyes.

"Give me that bowl," said Jerome. He held it before his mother, and
slipped one hand behind her neck, constraining her gently to raise
her head. "Here, mother," said he, "here's your gruel."

She resisted faintly, and shook her weak, repelling hand again. "Sit
up, mother, and drink your gruel," said Jerome, and his mother's eyes
flew wide open at that, and stared up in his face with eager inquiry;
for again she had that wild surmise that her lost husband spoke to
her.

"Drink it, mother," said Jerome, again meeting her half-delirious
gaze fully; and Ann seemed to see his father looking at her from his
son's eyes, through his immortality after the flesh. She raised
herself at once, held out her trembling hands for the bowl, and drank
the gruel to the last drop. Then she gave the empty bowl to Jerome,
leaned her head back, and closed her eyes again.

After dinner Jerome changed his clothes for his poor best for the
second time, and set forth to Doctor Prescott's. Elmira's wistful
eyes followed him as he went out, but he said not a word. He threw