CHAPTER XX.
LIFE'S IRONIES When he came down to breakfast next morning, Abel heard of Reuben's death from his mother.
"Well, you can't tell who's goin' to be the next," she concluded grimly, as she poured the coffee.
In spite of her austere manner and her philosophical platitude, Sarah was more moved in her heart than she had dared to confess.

From the moment that she had heard of Reuben's death--when she had gone over with some of her mourning to offer Molly--she had ceased to think of him as an old man, and her mind had dwelt upon him as one who had been ruthlessly cut off in his prime--as he might have been had the end come some thirty or forty years before.

Memory, that great miracle worker, had contrived to produce this illusion; and all Sarah's hard common sense could not prevent her feeling an indignant pity because Reuben's possibilities of happiness had been unfulfilled.

Trouble after trouble and never anything to make up for them, and then to go this way while he was resting! "It's like that," she thought bitterly to herself, alluding to life.

"It's like that!" And it seemed to her suddenly that the whole of existence was but a continual demonstration of the strong religious dogmas on which her house of faith had been reared.