To make up, to an extent at least, for her loss, her brother surrendered a good share of the income remaining to him. He did this with a secret satisfaction not entirely due to the fact that he was helping his sister. He felt that he was paying a kind of premium for the freedom from care which the burning up of his property had brought him. He paid the premium cheerfully, betook himself to a sunny room in a house not far from the Athenaeum, and thereafter devoted himself to his books. His day was regularly divided; a certain amount of time to eating, sleeping, exercise, and to society, including the Club, for he was no hater of his fellow men and women--and a certain amount of time to the Athenaeum. At first he had intended to resume his historical research. But the periodical room of the Athenaeum at length claimed the most of his time. He read English newspapers, French reviews and American magazines, and this in itself was an occupation. Yet sometimes as he sat near one of the windowed alcoves, and looked out over the old graveyard, his conscience smote him. When he saw the sunshine filtering through the overhanging boughs of the old trees upon the gray gravestones, his thoughts were often carried back to that historic past, in which he had once had so much interest. Then, as he glanced past the pyramidal Franklin monument, noting the busy rush of life in the great thoroughfare on the other side of the high iron fence, he would ponder a little over the contrasts between the Boston of today and the Boston of the past. His reflections if put on paper would have been valuable. As it was, he did no more than give occasional expression to his views when among his intimate friends. He realized, nevertheless, that from them he received but scant sympathy. Like most persons with original ideas, he was thought to be just a little peculiar. "Queer, you know; never sees things just as we do; but still awfully sensible," some of the club men would say, without observing the contradiction implied in this speech. Yet in spite of an occasional criticism of this kind Richard Somerset was admittedly a popular man, constantly consulted in matters where real judgment was the chief requisite. In emergencies, when special committees were formed to attend to things philanthropic or literary, he was always the first man thought of as a suitable member. Miss Theodora often wondered what she should have done without him; but reflecting long over this his latest advice about her attitude toward Eugenie, she felt not wholly satisfied. [Illustration] XXIII. Ben was again in Boston. A position on the staff of a great railroad had been offered him, and Boston for some time would be his headquarters. He was not sorry to be at home. His mother and father seemed to him to be growing less capable. His sisters needed him, and his salary was large enough to enable him to do for them the many little things that add so much to young girls' pleasure.