That same night Susan Price quietly and peacefully faded out of life. She had borne sorrow and pain enough; had she helped any one to be good? It would have been hard to judge of so blank and colorless a life. She had never seemed other than a pale reflection of her sister, even her love and loyalty to whom had been too instinctive and shadow-like to appear other than a thing of course. “I’ll try to live without you, Sue,” said Sally, looking down on the cold, placid face. “I’ll try to live without you, and, since the Lord has taken you, I s’pose I kin,—_now_! But when we was poor and starvin’, Sue, I couldn’t of, I know I couldn’t; and it’ll be a long day, sister, until I see you again.” And this was Susan Price’s sole funeral oration. BOOK II. ALTRUISM. CHAPTER I. AFTER TWELVE YEARS. It was a brilliant day towards the lamb-like end of a March, whose beginning had been of a particularly leonine character. The leaf-buds upon the trees showed faint lines of green along their smooth circumference of delicate brown; the dry, dead grass of winter had been replaced by young blades of a tender verdure; yet the air was cool and pleasantly crisp, though the sunshine, as every one said, was warm enough for June. At the South Micklegard railroad station, a short, jolly-looking gentleman seemed to differ from the prevailing opinion as to the heat; for his hands were in his pockets, and his overcoat buttoned closely over his stout form up to the smooth-shaven chin. Up and down the sunniest part of the platform he walked briskly, with at every turn so impatient a glance along the track that, by and by, a porter, wheeling up his empty truck to be in readiness for the coming freight, paused to ask him a question. “It’s not leaving us you are, Father?” “No, no, Denny, not so bad as that; only waiting for a friend. She’s late to-day?” with a motion of his head towards the point whence the train should have appeared half an hour before. Denny, however, was in no danger of misunderstanding the figuratively feminine pronoun. “Av it was the furst toime, she’d’ a ’slipped the track,” he said dryly. “That ould tin o’clock niver gits in till noon.” “Then ye should have telephoned me to that intent,” replied the father, with a twinkle in his eye. “Didn’t I leave me sermon in the midst to hurry down here? And if I miss me dinner to finish it, ’twill be the worse for you sinners, I promise ye, Denny.” Denny grinned, and pulled his forelock; but at this moment a distant whistle announced the approach of the train, and he wheeled his truck leisurely away, while Father McClosky restored his handkerchief to his pocket, and drew his plump figure into a posture of erect expectancy.