Poor Anthony Croft, or blessed Anthony Croft, I know not which--God
knows! Poor he certainly was, yet blessed after all. "One thing I
do," said Paul. "One thing I do," said Anthony. He was not able to
realise his ideals, but he had the angel aim by which he idealised
his reals.
O waiting heart of God! how soon would Thy kingdom come if we all did
our allotted tasks, humble or splendid, in this consecrated fashion!
CHAPTER III
"Therein I hear the Parcae reel
The threads of man at their humming wheel,
The threads of life and power and pain,
So sweet and mournful falls the strain."
EMERSON'S Harp.
Old Mrs. Butterfield had had her third stroke of paralysis, and died
of a Sunday night. She was all alone in her little cottage on the
river bank, with no neighbour nearer than Croft's, and nobody there
but a blind man and a small boy. Everybody had told her it was
foolish for a frail old woman of seventy to live alone in a house on
the river road, and everybody was pleased, in a discreet and
chastened fashion of course, that it had turned out exactly as they
had predicted.
Aunt Mehitable Tarbox was walking up to Milliken's Mills, with her
little black reticule hanging over her arm, and noticing that there
was no smoke coming out of the Butterfield chimney, and that the hens
were gathered about the kitchen door clamouring for their breakfast,
she thought it best to stop and knock. No response followed the
repeated blows from her hard knuckles.
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