"What?" cried Hillit, raising upon his elbows, "did you know old Barney? He was once foreman of an office in Cincinnati where I was a cub. He was comparatively young then, but they called him the old man. And what a disciplinarian! He used to say, 'Boys, if you get drunk with me it is your own look out, and if you don't walk the chalk line that's my look out. Don't expect favors, because you happen to be a good fellow.' One day, he came into the office, and after starting to put on his apron he hesitated, and turning to a fellow named Hicks, he said: 'Charley, I've a notion to be a gentleman once more.' Then I heard a man standing near me say: 'There'll be a vacant foremanship in this office within five minutes. The old man is going to take to the road.' And he did. He resigned his position and walked out. Life was worth living in those days, Mr. Lyman."
Just at this moment Mrs. Hillit appeared at the door. "The young lady who brought the flowers has come again," she said. Lyman looked up and his heart leaped, for, in the hall-way, stood Eva with her hands full of roses. She turned pale at seeing him, but with the color returning she came forward and held out her hand. Hillit's wasted eye, slow in movement but quick in conception, divined the meaning of the changing color of her face, and when his wife had brought a vase for the roses, he said: "I hope you two will talk just as if I wasn't here. And I won't be here long, you know."
"William," his wife spoke up, turning from the table whereon she had placed the young woman's contribution, "you promised me that you wouldn't talk that way any more."
"I forgot this time," he replied.
"Mr. Lyman," said Eva, "I want to thank you again for the book. I have read it twice, and I hope you won't think I gush when I say it is charming. One idea was uppermost in my mind as I read it—that I had never before heard the beating of so many hearts; and the atmosphere is so sweet that, more than once, I fancied that the paper must have been scented."
"Oh, come now," Lyman cried, "you are guying me."
"It does sound like it, I admit, but really I am not. And I don't bring you my opinion alone. Last night I induced father to read a chapter. He read chapter after chapter, and when I asked him what he thought, he simply said, 'Beautiful.' Wasn't that a conquest?"
"It was a great kindness."
"But why should you be surprised? Haven't you worked year after year and now should a just reward come as an astonishment?"
"It's all luck," said the consumptive, looking at his thin hands lying on the counterpane. "If a man has luck early in life, he's likely to pay for it later; and if he has bad luck till along toward middle life, the chances are that he will pick up. I had my luck early; I sang my song and finished it." His wife looked at him beseechingly. "I'm not complaining," he added. "It's no more than just. You and the young lady were speaking about a book, Mr. Lyman. How long did it take you to write it?"