ix weeks coming to-morrow since Tim
and I parted at Pleasantville. To think he has been promoted already!
At that rate he should be head of the firm in a year or two."

"Mr. Weston has been very kind," said she. "Of course he has seen that
Tim had every chance. He is the most thoughtful man I ever knew.
He----"

Weston's excellent qualities were well known to me. I had discovered
them long ago, and I did not care to hear Mary descant on them at
length. He had done much for Tim, but it was what Tim had done for
himself that I was proud of, so I interrupted her rather rudely.

"Yes, he got Tim his place; but you must remember Mr. Weston has hardly
been in New York a day since the boy left. He doesn't bother much
about business, so, after all, Tim is working his way alone."

"Yes," said Mary. She had missed a stitch somewhere, and it irritated
her greatly. That was evident by the way she picked at it. She
remedied the trouble somehow, recovered her composure, and went on
knitting.

"Is it eight dollars he is making, did you say?" she asked.

"Yes, eight," I replied, verifying the figure with a glance at the
letter.

"A week or a month?"

"A week. Just think of it--that is more than I got in the army."

But Mary was not a bit impressed. I remembered that she came from
Kansas, and in Kansas a dollar is not so big as in our valley.

"Living is so expensive in the city," she said absently. "With eight
dollars a week here Tim would be a millionaire. But in New York--" A
shrug of the shoulder expressed her meaning.

"True," said I, a bit ruefully.

I had expected her to clasp her hands, to look up at me and listen to
my stories of Tim's success, and hear my dreams for his future.
Instead, she went on knitting, never once raising her eyes to me. It
exasperated me. In sheer chagrin I took to silence and smoking. But
she would not let me rest long this way, though I was slowly lulling
myself into a state of semi-coma, of indifference to her and calm
disdain.

"Of course Tim has made some friends," she said, glancing up from her
work very casually.

"Of course he has," I snapped.

"That's nice," she murmured--knitting, knitting, knitting.

I expected her to ask who his friends were, and how he had made them.
That was all in the letter. Moreover, it was in the part I had not
read to her. But she abruptly abandoned this line of inquiry. She did
not care. She let me smoke on.

Suddenly she d