me."

As Ann with great clearness pointed out to him, there was no one else
to undertake the job with any chance of success. If Abner failed her,
then she supposed there was no hope for her: she would end by becoming
a wicked woman, and everybody, including herself, would hate her. It
was a sad prospect. The contemplation of it brought tears to Ann's
eyes.

He saw the justice of her complaint and promised to turn over a new
leaf. He honestly meant to do so; but, like many another repentant
sinner, found himself feeble before the difficulties of performance. He
might have succeeded better had it not been for her soft deep eyes
beneath her level brows.

"You're not much like your mother," so he explained to her one day,
"except about the eyes. Looking into your eyes I can almost see your
mother."

He was smoking a pipe beside the fire, and Ann, who ought to have been
in bed, had perched herself upon one of the arms of his chair and was
kicking a hole in the worn leather with her little heels.

"She was very beautiful, my mother, wasn't she?" suggested Ann.

Abner Herrick blew a cloud from his pipe and watched carefully the
curling smoke.

"In a way, yes," he answered. "Quite beautiful."

"What do you mean, 'In a way'?" demanded Ann with some asperity.

"It was a spiritual beauty, your mother's," Abner explained. "The soul
looking out of her eyes. I don't think it possible to imagine a more
beautiful disposition than your mother's. Whenever I think of your
mother," continued Abner after a pause, "Wordsworth's lines always come
into my mind."

He murmured the quotation to himself, but loud enough to be heard by
sharp ears. Miss Kavanagh was mollified.

"You were in love with my mother, weren't you?" she questioned him
kindly.

"Yes, I suppose I was," mused Abner, still with his gaze upon the
curling smoke.

"What do you mean by 'you suppose you were'?" snapped Ann. "Didn't you
know?"

The tone recalled him from his dreams.

"I was in love with your mother very much," he corrected himself,
turning to her with a smile.

"Then why didn't you marry her?" asked Ann. "Wouldn't she have you?"

"I never asked her," explained Abner.

"Why not?" persisted Ann, returning to asperity.

He thought a moment.

"You wouldn't understand," he told her.

"Yes, I would," retorted Ann.

"No, you wouldn't," he contradicted her quite shortly. They were both
beginning to lose patience with one another.