Ships That Pass in the Night

e was not likely to be on friendly term

re about the foreigners. So you will thus be throw

d. "I don't feel well enough to try to do any writing, or el

at she would have given him any serious confidences. Still, people are often surprisingly frank ab

isure," she continued,

er who had," said the

ience has been limi

is a good library here. It contains

ncle, with whom I live, keeps, a second-hand book-shop, and ever since I can remember, I

something, if you live long enough. It is wonderful how much one does learn when one does not read. It

drawn towards

me they form a subject which is very e

end me your microscope,

he answered quickly. "I

ld," she said. "I knew I was s

I dislike lending my things, and I dislike spending my money except on myself. If you have the misfortune to linger on as

at may

n saw how worn and tired her face was; and the word

he said brusquely. "Could you manage to enjoy

ut it would not be

Disagreeable Man went his own solitary way, a forlorn figure, wit

s feeble flame of duty and affection was the only lingering bit of warmth in a heart frozen almost by ill health and disappointed ambitions. The moralists tell us that suffering ennobles, and that a right acceptation of hindrances goes towards forming a beautiful character. But this result mu

all the sorrowful tenderness worthy of a loving mother, had helped them to take their leave of life. But these were only rumours, and there was nothing in Robert Allitsen's ordinary bearing to justify such talk. So the foolish

erally sent a specimen of his work to the Monthly Photograph Portfolio, and hence it was that people learned to know of his skill. He might be seen any fine day trudging along in company with his photographic apparatus, and a desolate dog, who looked

, that unexplainable "something" which has

nds anywhere. No one wrote to him, except his old mother;

ver occurred to him to say good morning, nor to give a greeting of any kind, nor to show a courtesy. One day during lunch, how

ear a shawl more carele

m to know anyt

e one pause to wonder what could have been the original disposition of the Disagreeable Man before ill-health had cut him off from the affairs of active life. Was he happy or unhappy? It was not known. He gave no sign of either the one state or the other. He always looked very ill, but he did not seem to get worse. He

pers or books, and h

ppearance. He was neither ugly nor good-looking, neither tall nor short, neither fair nor dark. He was thin and frail, and rather bent. But that might be the description of any one in Petershof. There was nothing pathetic about him, no suggestion

cultivated? No one in Petershof could say. He had always been as he wa

ad such a fine view from his room; like the gla

reams, and the ice cathedrals, and the great firs patient beneath their snow-burden. He loved the frozen waterfalls, and the costly diamonds in the snow. He knew, too, where the flowers nestled in their white nursery.

t that there was a time when he, too, was burning with ambition

coul