"
"Why--sometimes."
"I think a great deal about the after-life." His eyes were dim but his
voice was confident and clear. "I was sitting here to-day thinking about
what's lying in wait for us, and somehow I began to remember an
afternoon nearly sixty-five years ago, when I was playing with my little
sister Annie, down where that summer-house is now." He pointed out into
the long flower-garden, his eyes trembling of tears, his voice shaking.
"I began thinking--and it seemed to me that _you_ ought to think a
little more about the after-life. You ought to be--steadier"--he paused
and seemed to grope about for the right word--"more industrious--why--"
Then his expression altered, his entire personality seemed to snap
together like a trap, and when he continued the softness had gone from
his voice.
"--Why, when I was just two years older than you," he rasped with a
cunning chuckle, "I sent three members of the firm of Wrenn and Hunt to
the poorhouse."
Anthony started with embarrassment.
"Well, good-by," added his grandfather suddenly, "you'll miss your
train."
Anthony left the house unusually elated, and strangely sorry for the old
man; not because his wealth could buy him "neither youth nor digestion"
but because he had asked Anthony to be married there, and because he had
forgotten something about his son's wedding that he should have
remembered.
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