Then they stirred, and lifted their heads wearily,
and gazed at each other wistfully, dreamily, dazed;
then presently began to twaddle to each other in a
wandering and childish way. At intervals they
lapsed into silences, leaving a sentence unfinished,
seemingly either unaware of it or losing their way.
Sometimes, when they woke out of these silences they
had a dim and transient consciousness that something
had happened to their minds; then with a dumb and
yearning solicitude they would softly caress each other’s
hands in mutual compassion and support, as if they
would say: “I am near you, I will not forsake
you, we will bear it together; somewhere there is
release and forgetfulness, somewhere there is a grave
and peace; be patient, it will not be long.”
They lived yet two years, in mental night, always
brooding, steeped in vague regrets and melancholy
dreams, never speaking; then release came to both
on the same day.
Toward the end the darkness lifted from Sally’s
ruined mind for a moment, and he said:
“Vast wealth, acquired by sudden and unwholesome
means, is a snare. It did us no good, transient
were its feverish pleasures; yet for its sake we threw
away our sweet and simple and happy life —let
others take warning by us.”
He lay silent awhile, with closed eyes; then as the
chill of death crept upward toward his heart, and
consciousness was fading from his brain, he muttered:
“Money had brought him misery, and he took his
revenge upon us, who had done him no harm. He
had his desire: with base and cunning calculation
he left us but thirty thousand, knowing we would try
to increase it, and ruin our life and break our hearts.
Without added expense he could have left us far above
desire of increase, far above the temptation to speculate,
and a kinder soul would have done it; but in him was
no generous spirit, no pity, no—”
My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie,
but I am a Presbyterian. This is what my mother
told me, I do not know these nice distinctions myself.
To me they are only fine large words meaning nothing.
My mother had a fondness for such; she liked to say
them, and see other dogs look surprised and envious,
as wondering how she got so much education. But,
indeed, it was not real education; it was only show:
she got the words by listening in the dining-room
and drawing-room when there was company, and by going
with the children to Sunday-school and listening there;
and whenever she heard a large word she said it over
to herself many times, and so was able to keep it
until there was a dogmatic gathering in the neighborhood,
then she would get it off, and surprise and distress
them all, from pocket-pup to mastiff, which rewarded
her for all her trouble. If there was a stranger
he was nearly sure to be suspicious, and when he got
