THE CANOPY BED
ing new fortunes in the city, had left the old homestead to decay among the desolate fields that yielded now a meagre living for Mrs. Brand and her four strapping sons.
In the old parlor, where the ancient furniture showed ghostlike shapes in the dimness, and the dead air was like a tomb, Van Alen found a picture of his great-grandfather.
The little man had been painted without flattery. There he sat—Lilliputian on the great charger! At that moment Van Alen hated him—that Hop-o'-my-Thumb of another age, founder of a pigmy race, who, by his braggart will, had that night brought upon this one of his descendants the scorn of a woman.
And even as he thought of her, she came in, with the yellow flare of a candle lighting her vivid face.
"I thought you might need a light," she said; "it grows dark so soon."
As he took the candle from her, he said abruptly: "I shall not sleep in the canopy bed; there is a couch in the room."
"Oh," her tone was startled, "you shouldn't have taken all that I said in earnest."
"But you meant it?"
"In a way, yes. I have been in here so often and have looked at your grandfather's picture.
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