and added a big adjoining estate to his, why, that
pleased him mightily.

"Then he went and ordered his younger son to marry a poky kind of a
girl, that no one liked, to add another big estate on the other side,
and that was different. That was all the world different, because the
elder son had been in love all his life with the girl he married, and,
oh, Freckles, it's no wonder, for I saw her! She's a beauty and she has
the sweetest way.

"But that poor younger son, he had been in love with the village
vicar's daughter all his life. That's no wonder either, for she was more
beautiful yet. She could sing as the angels, but she hadn't a cent. She
loved him to death, too, if he was bony and freckled and red-haired--I
don't mean that! They didn't say what color his hair was, but his
father's must have been the reddest ever, for when he found out about
them, and it wasn't anything so terrible, HE JUST CAVED!

"The old man went to see the girl--the pretty one with no money, of
course--and he hurt her feelings until she ran away. She went to London
and began studying music. Soon she grew to be a fine singer, so she
joined a company and came to this country.

"When the younger son found that she had left London, he followed her.
When she got here all alone, and afraid, and saw him coming to her, why,
she was so glad she up and married him, just like anybody else would
have done. He didn't want her to travel with the troupe, so when they
reached Chicago they thought that would be a good place, and they
stopped, while he hunted work. It was slow business, because he never
had been taught to do a useful thing, and he didn't even know how to
hunt work, least of all to do it when he found it; so pretty soon things
were going wrong. But if he couldn't find work, she could always sing,
so she sang at night, and made little things in the daytime. He didn't
like her to sing in public, and he wouldn't allow her when he could
HELP himself; but winter came, it was very cold, and fire was expensive.
Rents went up, and they had to move farther out to cheaper and
cheaper places; and you were coming--I mean, the boy that is lost was
coming--and they were almost distracted. Then the man wrote and told his
father all about it; and his father sent the letter back unopened with
a line telling him never to write again. When the baby came, there was
very little left to pawn for food and a doctor, and nothing at all for
a nurse; so an old neighb