HIS FOURTH WIFE
"There are diversities of gift, but the same spirit"
CHAPTER XIX
"'LIZABETH"
A very old man leaned over, touching a cane-bottomed rocking chair with his carpet slipper. "Seems sort er more sociable like to see a little female chair a-rockin'," he remarked to himself, for the room was otherwise unoccupied, and even the house itself.
It was a December night and snowing hard. By and by the old man got up, and crossing over to a side window where the blind had not yet been pulled down, stood there for a moment frowning and saying impatiently: "Ef that don't beat all!" for mingling with the noises outside there sounded a faint and monotonous crying.
He was an uncommonly tall old man with a head like a highly polished billiard ball rising above a fringe of thin white hair; he had a straggly beard, while over his dim blue eyes the eyebrows arched like cornices.
Finally he shuffled back toward his place by the kitchen fire, and there getting down the family Bible commenced to read, first stuffing both fingers in his ears, although every now and then partially removing one to make observations. He was reading the twenty-second chapter of St. Matthew: