want to hurry you any. Take your time."

"I guess I realize it," said the girl.

"Well, it's a pootty plain case, that's a fact," Whitwell conceded. She
was silent, and he asked: "How did he come to tell you?"

"It's what he came up for. He began to tell me at once. I was certain
there was some trouble."

"Was it his notion to come, I wonder, or Mr. Westover's?"

"It was his. But Mr. Westover told him to break off with me, and keep on
with her, if she would let him."

"I guess that was pootty good advice," said Whitwell, letting his face
betray his humorous relish of it. "I guess there's a pair of 'em."

"She was not playing any one else false," said Cynthia, bitterly.

"Well, I guess that's so, too," her father assented. "'Ta'n't so much of
a muchness as you might think, in that light." He took refuge from the
subject in an undirected whistle.

After a moment the girl asked, forlornly: "What should you do, father,
if you were in my place?"

"Well, there I guess you got me, Cynthy," said her father. "I don't
believe 't any man, I don't care how old he is, or how much experience
he's had, knows exactly how a girl feels about a thing like this, or has
got any call to advise her. Of course, the way I feel is like takin' the
top of his head off. But I d' know," he added, "as that would do a great
deal of good, either. I presume a woman's got rather of a chore to get
along with a man, anyway. We a'n't any of us much to brag on. It's out
o' sight, out o' mind, with the best of us, I guess."

"It wouldn't be with Jackson--it wouldn't be with Mr. Westover."

"There a'n't many men like Mr. Westover--well, not a great many;
or Jackson, either. Time! I wish Jackson was home! He'd know how to
straighten this thing out, and he wouldn't weaken over Jeff much--well,
not much. But he a'n't here, and you've got to act for yourself. The way
I look at it is this: you took Jeff when you knowed what a comical
devil he was, and I presume you ha'n't got quite the same right to be
disappointed in what he done as if you hadn't knowed. Now mind, I a'n't
excusin' him. But if you knowed he was the feller to play the devil if
he got a chance, the question is whether--whether--"

"I know what you mean, father," said the girl, "and I don't want to
shirk my responsibility. It was everything to have him come right up and
tell me."

"Well," said Whitwell, impartially, "as far forth as that goes, I don't
think he's strained himself. He'd