is hand on her
arm and smiled. "Sure the old man would revise his prediction could he
see you; he might say the divil had got _you_--but he couldn't pity
me."

She turned him aside from this by saying: "I reckon New York is a great
deal bigger than Chicago. Mr. Moss says it makes any other town seem
like a county seat. I'm dead leery of it. I want to see it, but it just
naturally locoes me to think of it."

"'Tis the only place to spend money--so the boys tell me. I've never
been there but once, and then only for three days. I went on to get a
man when I was sheriff in San Juan. I saw it then mostly as a wonderful
fine swamp to lose a thief in."

"Did you get your man?" she asked, with formal interest.

"I did so--and nearly died for want of sleep on the way home; he was a
desprit character, was black Hosay; but I linked him to me arm and tuck
chances."

Once she had listened to these stories with eager interest; now they
were but empty boasting--so deeply inwrought was her soul with matters
that more nearly concerned her woman's need and woman's nature. The
potency of gold!--could any magic be greater? They lived like folk in a
flying palace (with books and papers, easy-chairs and card-tables),
eating carefully cooked meals, served by attendants as considerate and
as constant as those at their own fireside. The broad windows gave
streaming panorama of town and country, hill and river, and the young
wife accepted it all with the haughty air of one who is wearied with
splendor, but inwardly the knowledge that it all came to Haney (as to
her) unearned troubled her. Luck was his God, but she, while accepting
from him these marvellous, shining gifts, had another God--one derived
from her Saxon ancestors, one to whom luxury was akin to harlotry.

They left the train at Albany and went to the best hotel in the city to
spend the night. "To-morrow I'll see if I can find anybody who knows
where the old dad is," said Haney. "'Tis too late, and I'm too weary to
do it to-night."

Bertha was tired, too--mentally wearied, and glad of a chance to be
alone. She went at once to her room, leaving the Captain and Lucius busy
with the Troy directory.

Haney set about his search next day with the eager zeal of a lad. He
took an almost childish pleasure in displaying his good-fortune. Through
Lucius he hired an auto-car as good as the one he had left in Chicago,
and together he and Bertha rode into his native town, up into the blea