"The flowers make me want to die."
"Why, how can the flowers trouble you?"
"They are just like what Charley used to send me. They remind me that there is nothing more for me but to die and have done with the world."
The flowers were put out of her sight; but Phillida's mind had fastened itself on those other callas whose mute appeal for Charley Millard, at the crisis of her history, had so deeply moved her, though her perverse conscience would not let her respond to it.
XXXVI.
MRS. BESWICK.
About the time that Phillida got her flowers Mrs. Beswick sat mending her husband's threadbare overcoat. His vigorous thumbs, in frequent fastening and loosening, had worn the cloth quite through in the neighborhood of the buttons. To repair this, his wife had cut little bits of the fabric off the overplus of cloth at the seams, and worked these little pieces through the holes, and then sewed the cloth down upon them so as to underlay the thumb-worn places. The buttonholes had also frayed out, and these had to be reworked.
"I declare, my love," she said, "you ought to have a new overcoat. This one is not decent enough for a man in your position to wear."
"It'll have to do till warm weather," he said; "I couldn't buy another if I wanted to."
"But you see, love, since Dr. Gunstone called you and sent a carriage for you, there's a chance for a better sort of practice, if we were only able to furnish the office a little better, and, above all, to get you a good overcoat. There, try that on and see how it looks."