The estate was a large one, laid out in the English style, with a fine mansion¹ centrally located and elegantly furnished. Surely the owner of this fine domain² was worthy³ of envy, and ought to have been happy.

Let us enter the breakfast room and make acquaintance with him.

There he sits in an easy-chair, a white-haired, shrunken old man, his face deeply lined, and wearing a weary expression as if the world afforded him little satisfaction.

It was the same old man whom we last saw in the circus at Crampton. He had gone home with his nephew at once, having become weary of116 travel. It was wise, perhaps; for he was old, and to the old rest is welcome.

His nephew sat near by with a daily paper in his hand, from which he appeared to have been reading to his uncle.

"That will do, Hugo," said the old man. "I—I don't find any interest in the paper this morning."

"How are you feeling, uncle—as well as usual?"

"Well in health—that is, as well as I can expect to feel, but my life is empty. I have nothing to live for."

"Why don't you die then?" thought the nephew, but he did not express his thought. On the contrary, he said, "Surely, uncle, you have much to live for. You are rich, honored."

"But I have no one to love me, Hugo," said the old man, plaintively⁴, "no one of my own blood. My son is dead, and his son—do you know, Hugo," he continued in a different voice, "I cannot get out of my mind that boy we saw in the circus?"

Hugo shrugged⁵ his shoulder, but did not venture to express the annoyance⁶ he felt.

"You mean the—the O'Connor boy," he said indifferently.

117

"O'Connor!" replied his uncle, in surprise. "You told me his name was Oliver Brown."

分享到：