CHAPTER XIV 



THE STRESS OF SOCIETY FUNCTIONS HAS UNFORTUNATE 



RESULTS 



The earnestness with which Mr. Joseph Keeler had been 

 studying the several social problems, along with his friend the 

 professor, during the past months had lessened the tendency to 

 dwell upon those family matters which had so urgently been 

 pressed upon his attention. His sons had returned from their 

 prolonged trip to the South, and John seemed to have recovered 

 from the physical exhaustion and mental depression, which had 

 had such unfortunate results. But the lack of sufficient law 

 work gave him too much time for introspection; while the af- 

 fronts real or imagined, from his former associates rankled his too 

 sensitive egoism, the outcome proving that his depraved hab- 

 its had gained too strong a hold, in the absence of any acute 

 sense of personal wrong-doing, to enable him to reconstruct his 

 life and actions on a higher plane. So it was not very long before 

 his father came to learn with grief that he had a son so lost to 

 self-respect and regard for the family reputation as to appear 

 not infrequently in public, showing the traces of a dissipation 

 tending to become habitual. 



But Mr. Keeler was to suffer from the further knowledge 

 that his younger daughter, the light and joy of the home, whose 

 sunny disposition had so often served to dissipate the clouds 

 gathering over the family circle, was toward the end of a winter 

 of gaiety showing evidences of some malady, which her by no 

 means rugged constitution was not readily throwing off. A 

 slight cough had succeeded a seemingly simple cold, which when 

 her father suggested fewer parties and more sleep she made 

 light of as being nothing at all. When her mother was appealed 

 to, she too did not think it anything serious; but certainly 

 thought that a few weeks at Atlantic City would be a good thing. 

 Of course this suggestion was at once acceded to, so that mother 

 and daughter had gone away to the seaside, where, after a 



63 



