The old man fell back wearily.
"Seems ter me, Jane, ye might jest see," he fretted. "'T ain't much I'm
askin' of ye, an' ye know them spoons--"
"Yes, yes, dear, I'll go," interrupted the woman hurriedly.
"And, Jane!"
"Yes." The woman turned and waited. She knew quite well what was coming,
but it was the very exquisiteness of her patient care that allowed her
to give no sign that she had waited in that same spot to hear those same
words every night for long years past.
"An' ye might count 'em--them spoons," said the old man.
"Yes."
"An' the forks."
"Yes."
"An' them photygraph pictures in the parlor."
"All right, father." The woman turned away. Her step was slow, but
confident--the last word had been said.
To Jane Pendergast her father had gone with the going of his keen, clear
mind, twenty years before. This fretful, childish, exacting old man that
pottered about the house all day was but the shell that had held the
kernel--the casket that had held the jewel. But because of what it had
held, Jane guarded it tenderly, laying at its feet her life as a willing
sacrifice.
There had been four children: Edgar, the eldest; Jane, Mary, and Fred.
Edgar had left home early, and was a successful business man in Boston.
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