Page:Life's little ironies (1894).pdf/60

of her heart—that of sending her sona, Joshua and Cornelius, to one of the universities, having been informed that from three hundred to three hundred and fifty each might carry them through their terms with such great economy aa she knew she could trust them to practise. But she had died a year or two before this time, worn out by too keen a strain towards these euds; and the money, coming unreservedly into the hands of their father, had been nearly dissipated. With its exhaostion went all opportanity and hope of a university degree for the sons.

“It drives me mad when I think of it,” said Joshua, the elder. “And here we work and work in our own bangling way, and the utmost we can hope for is a term of years as national school-masters, and possible admission to a theological college, and ordination as despised licentiates,”

The anger of the elder was reflected as simple sadness in the face of the other. “We can preach the gospel as well without a hood on our surplices as with one,” he said, with feeble consolation.

“Preach the gospel—true,” said Joshua, with a slight pursing of mouth, “But we can’t rise.”

“Let us make the best of it, and grind on.”

The other was silent, and they drearily bent over their books again.

The cause of all this gloom, the millwright Halborough, now snoring in the shed, had beena thriving master-machinist, notwithstanding his free and careless disposition, till a taste for a more than adequate quantity of strong liquor took hold of him; since when his habits had interfered with hie business sadly. Already millers went elsewhere for their gear, and only one set of hands was now kept going, though there were formerly two. Already he found a difficulty in meeting his men at the week’s end, and though they had