city life.

He pictured the close streets, with their rows of houses, that left
for the eye only narrow patches of ethereal blue, and contrasted
this with the broad winter landscape, which for him had always
spread itself out with a beauty rivaled by no other season, and his
heart failed him.

The brief December days were on them, and Irene grew more urgent.

"Come, dear father," she wrote. "I think of you, sitting all alone
at Ivy Cliff, during these long evenings, and grow sad at heart in
sympathy with your loneliness. Come at once. Why linger a week or
even a day longer? We have been all in all to each other these many
years, and ought not to be separated now."

But Mr. Delancy was not ready to exchange the pure air and
widespreading scenery of the Highlands for a city residence, even in
the desolate winter, and so wrote back doubtingly. Irene and her
husband then came up to add the persuasion of their presence at Ivy
Cliff. It did not avail, however. The old man was too deeply wedded
to his home.

"I should be miserable in New York," he replied to their earnest
entreaties; "and it would not add to your happiness to see me going
about with a sober, discontented face, or to be reminded every
little while that if you had left me to my winter's hibernation I
would have been a contented instead of a dissatisfied old man. No,
no, my children; Ivy Cliff is the best place for me. You shall come
up and spend Christmas here, and we will have a gay season."