With some difficulty
he recalled my features, and by decrees let out the story of his life
during the last ten years.
He and his wife had fought along in their new house, hiding their
discomfort from each other, and abiding the slow degrees by which
their dwelling should change into a home. But before that change was
worked, the woman fell under a paralytic stroke, and their savings, on
which they had just contrived to live, threatened to be swallowed up
by the doctor's bill. After considering long, the miller wrote off to
his only son, a mechanic in the Plymouth Dockyard, and explained the
case. This son was a man of forty or thereabouts, was married, and had
a long family. He could not afford to take the invalid into his house
for nothing; but his daughters would look after their grandmother and
she should have good medical care as well, if she came on a small
allowance.
"So the only thing to be done, sir, was for my old woman to go."
"And you--?"
"Oh, I went into the 'House.' You see, there wasn' enough for both,
livin' apart."
I stared down the line to the spot where the mill-wheel had hummed
so pleasantly, and the compassionate sentence I was about to utter
withered up and died on my lips.
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