R. Robert Clarkson sat by his fire, smoking thoughtfully.
His lifelong neighbour and successful rival in love
had passed away a few days before, and Mr. Clarkson,
fresh from the obsequies, sat musing on the fragility
of man and the inconvenience that sometimes attended
his departure.
His meditations were disturbed by a low knocking on
the front door, which opened on to the street.
In response to his invitation it opened slowly, and
a small middle-aged man of doleful aspect entered softly
and closed it behind him.
“Evening, Bob,” he said, in stricken accents.
“I thought I’d just step round to see
how you was bearing up. Fancy pore old Phipps!
Why, I’d a’most as soon it had been me.
A’most.”
Mr. Clarkson nodded.
“Here to-day and gone to-morrow,” continued
Mr. Smithson, taking a seat. “Well, well!
So you’ll have her at last-pore thing.”
“That was his wish,” said Mr. Clarkson,
in a dull voice.
“And very generous of him too,” said Mr.
Smithson. “Everybody is saying so.
Certainly he couldn’t take her away with him.
How long is it since you was both of you courting
her?”
“Thirty years come June,” replied the
other.
“Shows what waiting does, and patience,”
commented Mr. Smithson. “If you’d
been like some chaps and gone abroad, where would you
have been now? Where would have been the reward
of your faithful heart?”
Mr. Clarkson, whose pipe had gone out, took a coal
from the fire and lit it again.
“I can’t understand him dying at his age,”
he said, darkly. “He ought to have lived
to ninety if he’d been taken care of.”
“Well, he’s gone, pore chap,” said
his friend. “What a blessing it must ha’
been to him in his last moments to think that he had
made provision for his wife.”
“Provision!” exclaimed Mr. Clarkson.
“Why he’s left her nothing but the furniture
and fifty pounds insurance money—nothing
in the world.”
Mr. Smithson fidgeted. “I mean you,”
he said, staring.
“Oh!” said the other. “Oh,
yes—yes, of course.”
“And he doesn’t want you to eat your heart
out in waiting,” said Mr. Smithson. “‘Never
mind about me,’ he said to her; ’you go
and make Bob happy.’ Wonderful pretty
girl she used to be, didn’t she?” Mr.
Clarkson assented.
“And I’ve no doubt she looks the same
to you as ever she did,” pursued the sentimental
Mr. Smithson. “That’s the extraordinary
part of it.”
Mr. Clarkson turned and eyed him; removed the pipe
from his mouth, and, after hesitating a moment, replaced
it with a jerk.
“She says she’d rather be faithful to
his memory,” continued the persevering Mr. Smithson,
“but his wishes are her law. She said so
to my missis only yesterday.”
“Still, she ought to be considered,” said
Mr. Clarkson, shaking his head. “I think
that somebody ought to put it to her. She has
got her feelings, poor thing, and, if she would rather
not marry again, she oughtn’t to be compelled
to.”
