Sewell smiled to
think how much easier it was to make one's peace with one's God than
with one's wife; and before he had brought himself to the point of
answering Barker's letter, there came a busy season in which he
forgot him altogether.
II.
One day in the midst of this Sewell was called from his study to see
some one who was waiting for him in the reception-room, but who sent
in no name by the housemaid.
"I don't know as you remember me," the visitor said, rising
awkwardly, as Sewell came forward with a smile of inquiry. "My
name's Barker."
"Barker?" said the minister, with a cold thrill of instant
recognition, but playing with a factitious uncertainty till he could
catch his breath in the presence of the calamity. "Oh yes! How do
you do?" he said; and then planting himself adventurously upon the
commandment to love one's neighbour as one's-self, he added: "I'm
very glad to see you!"
In token of his content, he gave Barker his hand and asked him to be
seated.
The young man complied, and while Sewell waited for him to present
himself in some shape that he could grapple with morally, he made an
involuntary study of his personal appearance. That morning, before
starting from home by the milk-train that left Willoughby Pastures
at 4.5, Barker had given his Sunday boots a coat of blacking, which
he had eked out with stove-polish, and he had put on his best
pantaloons, which he had outgrown, and which, having been made very
tight a season after tight pantaloons had gone out of fashion in
Boston, caught on the tops of his boots and stuck there in spite of
his efforts to kick them loose as he stood up, and his secret
attempts to smooth them down when he had reseated himself.
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