with the hollow mockery of bidding him take care of himself, because there was nothing better to say, that we left him to his lonely grief, and I shall never forget the picture of him, standing against the mellowed tones that Autumn weaves, when we came away, inarticulate, helpless, living on merely in habit.
I hardly expected to find him there still when we came again next spring, but he was. Haggard and thin and "doctorin'" but still going the old round, patient and faithful as ever. He was always at hand when wanted, one missed nothing save the light in his eye and the sense of life about him. He made a few references to the past when we chanced to be by ourselves, but one felt that he carried with him a weight of memory and an experience of life that words could not unburden him of.
Now it so happened that summer that a neighboring family brought with them as cook and general manager, a woman somewhat resembling the late Mrs. Goodfriend, an exemplary, capable, eligible, person who was kindly disposed towards Abel, and who would have made a most suitable help-mate for him. Part of his work, moreover, was to take
