T was a sultry morning in August when David Herschel took his place in the law-office of Porter & Edmunds.
The sun beat against the tall buildings until the radiated heat of the streets was sickening in its intensity. Clerks went to their work with pale faces and languid movements. Everything had a wilted look, and the watering-carts left a steam rising in their trail, almost as disagreeable as the clouds of dust had been before.
Miss Caroline had insisted on Jack's remaining at home, and Bethany's wearing a thin white dress in place of her customary suit of heavy black. They had both protested, but as Bethany went slowly towards the office she was glad that the sensible old lady had carried her point.
To shorten the distance, she passed through one of the poorer streets of the town. Disagreeable odors, suggestive of late breakfasts, floated out from steamy kitchens. Neglected, half-dressed children cried on the doorsteps and quarreled in the gutters.
A great longing came over Bethany for a breath from wide, fresh fields, or green, shady woodlands. This was the first summer she had ever passed in the city. August had always been associated in her mind with the wind in the pine woods, or the sound of the sea on some rocky coast. It recalled the musical drip of the waterfalls trickling down high banks of thickly-growing ferns. It brought back the breath of clover-fields and the mint in hillside pastures.
A strong repugnance to her work seized her. She felt that she could not possibly bear to go back to the routine of the office and the monotonous click of her typewriter. The longer she thought of those old care-free summers, the more she chafed at the confinement of the present one.
She sighed wearily as she reached the entrance of the great building. Every door and window stood open. While she waited for the elevator-boy to respond to her ring, she turned her eyes toward the street. A blind man passed by, led by a wan, sad-eyed child. The sun was beating mercilessly on the man's gray head, for his cap was held appealingly in his outstretched hand.
"How dared I feel dissatisfied with my lot?" thought Bethany, with a swift rush of pity, as the contrast between this blind beggar's life and hers was forced upon her.
There was no one in the office when she entered. After the glare of the street, it seemed so comfortable that she thought again of the blind beggar and the child who led him, with a feeling of remorse for her discontent.
A great bunch of lilies stood in a tall glass vase on the table, filling the room with their fragrance. She took out a card that was half hidden among them. Lightly penciled, in a small, running hand, was the one word—"Consider!"