Martha found no more fault with Mrs. Richie. After a while she said in
that virtuous voice familiar to husbands, "William, I know you don't
like to do it, so I cleaned all the medicine-shelves in your office
this morning."

"Thank you," William said, curtly; and finished his supper in absolute
silence.




CHAPTER XIII


Dr. Lavendar was not sleeping very well that spring. He fell into the
habit of waking at about three, just when the birds begin the
scattered twittering that swells into full clamor and then dies
suddenly into silence. In that gray stillness, broken by bird-calls,
he used to occupy himself by thinking of his people.

"The name of the large upper chamber, facing the east, was Peace." And
so this old pilgrim found it, lying in his four-poster, listening to
the cries and calls in the jargonelle pear-tree in the corner of the
garden, and watching the ghostly oblong of the window that faced the
east, glimmer and brighten into the effulgence of day. It was then,
with his old hands folded on his breast, that he thought about the
Wrights--all three of them....

It was a relief to know that Mrs. Richie would influence Sam to put
his mind on his work; if the boy would do that, his father would be