learning that he, the only person who, as he believed, could understand
him, would not come to see him this day above all others, he again broke
out in wrath, abusing the degeneracy of the age and the ingratitude of
the young.

"Is it a visit which detains him again?" he inquired, and when Alexander
thought not, he exclaimed contemptuously: "Then it is some war of words
at the Museum. And for such poor stuff as that a son can forget his duty
to his father and mother!"

"But you, too, used to enjoy these conflicts of intellect," his daughter
humbly remarked; but the old man broke in:

"Only because they help a miserable world to forget the torments of
existence, and the hideous certainty of having been born only to die some
horrible death. But what can you know of this?"

"By my mother's death-bed," replied the girl, "we, too, had a glimpse
into the terrible mystery." And Alexander gravely added, "And since we
last met, father, I may certainly account myself as one of the
initiated."

"You have painted a dead body?" asked his father.

"Yes, father," replied the lad with a deep breath. "I warned you," said
Heron, in a tone of superior experience.

And then, as Melissa rearranged the folds of his blue robe, he said he
should go for a walk. He sighed as he spoke, and his children knew
whither he would go. It was to the grave to which Melissa had