blood and traditions of the family, Nan's mother
had been the pet of Portsmouth until, inexplicably, Caleb Brent, a
chief petty officer on her father's flag-ship, upon whom the hero's
medal had just been bestowed, had found favor in her eyes. The ways of
love, as all the philosophers of the ages are agreed, are beyond
definition or understanding; even in his own case, Caleb Brent was not
equal to the task of understanding how their love had grown, burgeoned
into an engagement, and ripened into marriage. He only knew that, from
a meek and well-disciplined petty officer, he had suddenly developed
the courage of a Sir Galahad, and, while under the influence of a
strange spell, had respectfully defied the admiral, who had foolishly
assumed that, even if his daughter would not obey him, his junior in
the service would. Then had come the baby girl, Nan, the
divorce--pressed by the mother's family--and the mother's death.

If his wife had discerned in him the nobility that was so apparent to
his daughter--Poor old hero! But Nan always checked her meditations at
this point. They didn't seem quite fair to her mother.

Seated on the bench this afternoon, Nan reviewed her life from her
sixth year, the year in which her father had claimed her. Until her
eighteenth year, she had not been unhappy, for, following their
arrival in Port Agnew, her father had prospered to a degree which
permitted his daughter the enjoyment of the ordinary opportunities of
ordinary people. If she had not known extravagance in the matter of
dress, neither had she known penury; when her feminine instinct
impelled her to brighten and beautify the little home on the Sawdust
Pile from time to time, she had found that possible. She had been
graduated with honors from the local high school, and, being a
book-lover of catholic taste and wide range, she was, perhaps, more
solidly educated than the majority of girls who have had opportunities
for so-called higher education. With the broad democracy of sawmill
towns, she had not, in the days gone by, been excluded from the social
life of the town, such as it was, and she had had her beaus, such as
they were. Sometimes she wondered how the choir in the Presbyterian
church had progressed since she, once the mezzo-soprano soloist, had
resigned to sing lullabys to a nameless child, if Andrew Daney still
walked on the tips of his shoes when he passed the collection-plate,
and if the mortgage on the church had ever been