r
foot to the dainty head of beautiful, half-grey hair. He could read
her as an open book--her veneration of all Westmoreland things--her
vanity--her pride of home and name and position; the overpowering
independence of that vanity which made her hold up her head in
company, just as in the former days, tho' to do it she must work,
scrub, pinch, ay, even go hungry.

He knew it all and he knew it better than she guessed--that it had
actually come to a question of food with them; that her son was a
geological dreamer, just out of college, and that Alice's meagre
salary at the run-down female college where she taught music was all
that stood between them and poverty of the bitterest kind.

For there is no poverty like the tyranny of that which sits on the
erstwhile throne of plenty.

He glanced around the room--the hall--the home--in his mind's
eye--and wondered how she did it--how she managed that poverty should
leave no trace of itself in the home, the well furnished and elegant
old home, from its shining, polished furniture and old silver to the
oiled floor of oak and ash.

Could he buy her--bribe her, win her to work for him? He started to
speak and say: "Cousin Alethea, may not all this be stopped, this
debt and poverty and make-believe--this suffering of pride,
transfixed by the spears of poverty? Let you and me arrange it, and
all so satisfactorily. I have loved Alice all my life."

There is the fool in every one of us. And that is what the fool in
Richard Travis wished him to say. What he did say was:

"Oh, it was nothing but purely business on my part--purely business.
I had the money and was looking for a good investment. I was glad to
find it. There are a hundred acres and the house left. And by the
way, Cousin Alethea, I just added five-hundred dollars more to the
principal,--thought, perhaps, you'd need it, you know? You'll find it
to your credit at Shipton's bank."

He smoked on as if he thought it was nothing. As a business fact he
knew the place was already mortgaged for all it was worth.

"Oh, how can we ever thank you enough?"

Travis glanced at her when she spoke. He flushed when he heard her
place a slight accent on the we. She glanced at him and then looked
into the fire. But in their glances which met, they both saw that the
other knew and understood.

"And by the way, Cousin Alethea," said Travis after a while, "of
course it is not necessary to let Alice know anything of this
business. I