id, when the two men
came in after their task was done. "Ah always tell the Doctor it's
lucky he's married and has some one to look after him. You see he's no
great shakes at keeping clean now;" she looked him over with an eye
made critical by his proximity to the German, who was a model of
soldierly neatness; "and if he wasn't married, Ah don't know what he'd
be!"

Von Rittenheim didn't know, either, so he said, "That is one advantage
of an ar-rmy tr-raining, Mrs. Mor-rgan."

"Well, Ah don't know as Ah agree with you there, Baron," she replied.
"Henry was in the army all through the Civil War, and Ah don't think
his habits were a bit improved at the end of it."

Henry grinned appreciatively, but the Baron's features betrayed only
such interest as incited Mrs. Morgan to further conversation.

"Where's the rocking-chair you had when Ah was here befo'? That was Ben
Frady's mother's chair. Ah've seen the old woman sitting out on the
po'ch in it many a time."

She waited for an answer, and Friedrich colored to the roots of his
hair. It was on his tongue's tip to say that it was in the next room,
but Mrs. Morgan was quite capable of penetrating there; and, besides,
telling the truth was another result of army training. He stammered
something about having disposed of it, and hastened to ask if Madam
would not like a cup of coffee.

It was a natural pride that deterred von Rittenheim from confessing to
these friends of not many months' standing that he had sold the chair,
the only thing in the house worth selling, and had sold it from
necessity. The Doctor was right in his suspicions that the Baron was
not getting on comfortably. Ten days ago he had spent his very last
cent, and he was learning the true meaning of the word "poverty." The
crop of corn that he had bought with the farm had served him until now
as feed for the mule, as meal and hominy, and, by the alchemy of the
alembic, as whisky. The end of the bacon from Ben Frady's pig was on
the shelf in the cupboard before which he was standing, and he had just
offered to his guest the last of the coffee with which the sale of old
Mrs. Frady's chair had provided him. It was this anxiety that had
clouded his brow as he looked at the sunset. He had nothing to send to
market, not even wood, for his bit of forest yielded only enough for
his own use. He had sold his cow, and had let a man have his mule for
its keep.

It had not hurt his pride to live on this little mount