"Sit down, Richard. It is nothing that you have done that troubles your mother. It is a condition which has risen without your will entirely." "I have an engagement this evening, father!" "I'll not keep you long." Dr. Lister paused again, this time to steady his voice. He had had no knowledge of disappointed love from his own experience, Mary Alcestis having fallen like a ripe peach into his hand, but he could imagine the discomforts of the situation. Richard found a seat in a corner of the sofa. His heart beat a little more rapidly and he was puzzled by his father's gravity. He seemed to see the edge of a cloud, as yet no larger than a man's hand, but none the less ominous. "I must tell you about your Uncle Basil, Richard." "Well," said Richard, "go ahead. He's a very mysterious person to me so far." "Your grandfather had two children, your mother and Basil. Upon Basil he founded many hopes and began early in his youth a most careful system of training so that he should waste no time, but should become what Dr. Everman himself was, a careful and thorough student of Greek. "A certain amount of instruction Basil listened to willingly, but his nature was not one which submitted itself to regular, long-continued training of any sort. He was a very handsome, talented lad, but a cruel disappointment to his father. He would not graduate from the college, refusing peremptorily to spend his time upon subjects in which he had no interest. He learned to read Greek fluently; indeed, he had a passionate admiration for the literary beauties of the language, but to his father's great chagrin he would go no deeper." "Then he was not like Browning's grammarian who never got anything out of life but a funeral on a high mountain," said Richard gayly. Uncle Basil had nothing to do with him, the little cloud had disappeared. "Finally, after some difficulty with his father, he left home." "He was grown up, I suppose," said Richard. "There isn't much to do in Waltonville." "He left home, as I have said, and after a year he died of malignant diphtheria in a lodging-house in Baltimore. His father's death followed close upon his. Thus your mother was in a short time bereft of father, only brother, and also of her home, since this house is the property of the college. I was elected to your grandfather's place, as it happened, and I brought her back." Richard looked up at the picture of his grandfather. He was tempted to say, "Handsome old boy." "Slowly your mother returned to a normal condition of mind, but she has never recovered from the death of your uncle. Her father and mother were old, she and Basil were born late in their lives, and to him she looked for companionship. His death away from home, waited upon by strangers, almost unhinged her mind.