The house which Miles Echlin called home consisted of suites of reception-rooms furnished in the costliest taste of thirty years ago, when Mrs. Echlin was alive, and Edward, a bright boy of three, was making sunshine in the house, while there was a possibility of sons and daughters yet to come; but the cheery little wife, for whose sake and by whose direction the furnishing had been done, took a cold—a mere nothing, it seemed—and passed almost suddenly out of the life so full of hope and happiness for her, just as a bright flame which makes the whole room glad is blown out by a puff of wind coming one knows not whence. Then Miles, saddened and sobered, went about his work, caring little for the large house, only seeing that it was properly cleaned and aired, walking methodically through the great rooms, and coming at last to live in two of them, his dining-room and a small sleeping room, which had been his dressing-room while his wife was alive. A few friends came to see him at intervals, and there were some to whom the silent house was a home whenever they came to town; but Miles had no heart for company. When Edward should be grown up would be time enough; the boy should marry, and then the house would once again echo with laughter and song; he should make his own choice—it would be sure to be a worthy one, and they would find a corner for the old man, and not think him in the way. Edward grew up, and was all that his father wished him to be; then came the second bitter disappointment, and the big house was more empty and silent than ever. On that June evening, as he strolled with Mark through the quiet streets, and glanced up at the lighted windows in the houses of his neighbours, at the groups of people, old and young, on the high balconies, and caught the waves of laughter or song, the silence, the darkness of the house into which they introduced themselves by a latchkey, seemed almost unendurable. The gas was turned low in the dining-room; the portrait of Mrs. Echlin looked thin and spectral; the plate and glass on the sideboard suggested anything but good cheer, looking rather like mummies from which the life has long since departed. Mark turned up the gas, and they saw that it wanted five minutes to ten. What a long evening it had been. Mark was tired, and thought, if Mr. Echlin didn’t mind, he would go to bed; he said something in apology about country habits; he did not say that he was up every morning before six practising certain technicalities which were necessary for the carrying on the business; nor did he complain of the heat and closeness of the office, though both were trying to a country lad.