gue black
mutters about Winona. The girl had gone from bad to worse. But his
skirts were clean. The mother was the one to blame. He'd talked all he
could.

Then Wilbur, in the disordered kitchen, put himself squarely in the way
of the teary mother. He commanded details. The distraught woman, hair
tumbling from beneath a cap set rakishly to one side, vigorously stirred
yellow dough in an earthen mixing dish.

"Stop this nonsense!" he gruffly ordered.

Mrs. Penniman abandoned the long spoon and made a pitiful effort to dry
her eyes with an insufficient apron.

"Winona!" she sobbed. "Telegram--coming home tomorrow--nothing cooked
up--trying to make chocolate cake--"

"Why take it so hard? You knew the blow had to fall some time."

Mrs. Penniman broke down again.

"It's not a joke!" she sobbed. Then with terrific
effort--"Mar--married!"

"Winona Penniman married?"

The stricken mother opened swimming eyes at him, nodding hopelessly.

"Why, the little son of a gun!" said Wilbur, admiringly. "I didn't think
she'd be so reckless!"

"I'm so glad!" whimpered the mother.

She seized the spoon and the bowl. Judge Penniman hovered at the open
door of the kitchen.

"I told her what would happen!" he stormed. "She'll listen to me next
time! Always the way in this house!"

Mrs. Penniman relapsed.

"We don't know the party. Don't know him from Adam. She don't even sign
her right name."

Wilbur left the house of mourning and went out to the barn, where all
that day he worked at the Can, fretting it at last into a decent
activity.

Dave Cowan that night became gay and tasteless on hearing the news. He
did what he could to fan the judge's resentment. He said it was
probably, knowing Winona's ways, that she had wed a dissolute French
nobleman, impoverished of all but his title. He hoped for the best, but
he had always known that the girl was a light-minded baggage. He
wondered how she could ever justify her course to Matthew Arnold if the
need rose. He said the old house would now be turned into a saloon, or
salong, as the French call it. He wished to be told if the right to be
addressed as Madame la Marquise could compensate the child for those
things of simple but enduring worth she had cast aside. He somewhat
cheered Mrs. Penniman, but left the judge puffing with scorn.

* * * * *

Wilbur Cowan met the noon train next day. The Can rattled far too much
for its size, but it went. T