"I want my boys to be neat," he had said once apologetically to Mrs. Devoe, when requesting her to give away his old school suit preparatory to buying another.
All he needed to be perfect was congenial social life, Prudence believed, but that, alas, seemed never to enter his conception. He knew it never had since that long ago day when he had congratulated his brother upon his perfect share of this world's happiness. And, queerly enough, Prudence stood too greatly in awe of him to suggest that his life was too one-sided and solitary.
"Some people wonder if you were ever married," Mrs. Devoe said to him that afternoon when he went down to his late supper. Mrs. Devoe never stood in awe of anybody.
"Yes, I was married twenty years ago—to my work," he replied, gravely; "there isn't any John Holmes, there is only my work."
"There is something that is John Holmes to me," said the widow in her quick voice, "and there's a John Holmes to the boys and girls, and I guess the Lord thinks something of you beside your 'work,' as you call it."
Meditatively he walked along the grassy wayside towards the brown farmhouse:
"Perhaps there is a John Holmes that I forget about," he said to himself.
X.
LINNET.
"Use me to serve and honor thee,
And let the rest be as thou wilt"—E.L.E.