PROLOGUE.


"What is the use of it?" the Poet demanded peevishly--it was New
Year's Day in the morning. "People don't read my poetry when I have
gone to the trouble of writing it!"

"The more shame to them," said his wife.

"But, my dear, you know you never read it yourself."

"Oh, that is altogether different. Besides you _are_ improving, are
you not?" She asked it a trifle anxiously, but the question set him
off at once.

"In twenty years' time--" he began eagerly.

"--The boy will be at college." She laid down her needle and
embroidery and, gazing into the fire, let her hands lie idle in her
lap.

"You might think of me."

"I thought," she answered, "you were doing that."

"Of yourself, then."

"In twenty years' time--" She broke off with the faintest possible
sigh.