The old neatness had gone from the house; articles lay in places which could show no reason for their presence, as if momentarily deposited there some months ago, and forgotten ever since; there were no flowers; things were jumbled together on the furniture which should have been in cupboards; and the place in general had that stagnant, unrenovated air which usually pervades the maimed home of the widower.
Downe soon renewed his customary full-worded lament over his wife, and even when he had worked himself up to tears, went on volubly, as if a listener were a luxury to be enjoyed whenever he could be caught.
'She was a treasure beyond compare, Mr.Barnet! I shall never see such another.

Nobody now to nurse me--nobody to console me in those daily troubles, you know, Barnet, which make consolation so necessary to a nature like mine.

It would be unbecoming to repine, for her spirit's home was elsewhere--the tender light in her eyes always showed it; but it is a long dreary time that I have before me, and nobody else can ever fill the void left in my heart by her loss--nobody--nobody!' And Downe wiped his eyes again.
'She was a good woman in the highest sense,' gravely answered Barnet, who, though Downe's words drew genuine compassion from his heart, could not help feeling that a tender reticence would have been a finer tribute to Mrs.Downe's really sterling virtues than such a second-class lament as this.
'I have something to show you,' Downe resumed, producing from a drawer a sheet of paper on which was an elaborate design for a canopied tomb.
'This has been sent me by the architect, but it is not exactly what I want.' 'You have got Jones to do it, I see, the man who is carrying out my house,' said Barnet, as he glanced at the signature to the drawing.
'Yes, but it is not quite what I want.

I want something more striking--more like a tomb I have seen in St.Paul's Cathedral.

Nothing less will do justice to my feelings, and how far short of them that will fall!' Barnet privately thought the design a sufficiently imposing one as it stood, even extravagantly ornate; but, feeling that he had no right to criticize, he said gently, 'Downe, should you not live more in your children's lives at the present time, and soften the sharpness of regret for your own past by thinking of their future ?' 'Yes, yes; but what can I do more ?' asked Downe, wrinkling his forehead hopelessly.
It was with anxious slowness that Barnet produced his reply--the secret object of his visit to-night.