mes a day just to look at JANE! And her standing there, calmly tellin'
that sooty-faced little girl, 'He's in love of me'! Why, it's enough to
sicken a man! Honestly, if I had my way, I'd see that both she and that
little Freddie Banks got a first-class whipping!"

"Don't you think, Willie," said Mrs. Baxter--"don't you think that,
considering the rather noncommittal method of Freddie's courtship, you
are suggesting extreme measures?"

"Well, SHE certainly ought to be punished!" he insisted, and then, with
a reversal to agony, he shuddered. "That's the least of it!" he cried.
"It's the insulting things you always allow her to say of one of the
noblest girls in the United States--THAT'S what counts! On the very last
day--yes, almost the last hour--that Miss Pratt's in this town, you let
your only daughter stand there and speak disrespectfully of her--and
then all you do is tell her to 'go and play somewhere else'! I don't
understand your way of bringing up a child," he declared, passionately.
"I do NOT!"

"There, there, Willie," Mrs. Baxter said. "You're all wrought up--"

"I am NOT wrought up!" shouted William. "Why should I be charged with--"

"Now, now!" she said. "You'll feel better to-morrow."

"What do you mean by that?" he demanded, breathing deeply.

For reply she only shook her head in an odd little way, and in her
parting look at him there was something at once compassionate, amused,
and reassuring.

"You'll be all right, Willie," she said, softly, and closed the door.

Alone, William lifted clenched hands in a series of tumultuous
gestures at the ceiling; then he moaned and sank into a chair at his
writing-table. Presently a comparative calm was restored to him, and
with reverent fingers he took from a drawer a one-pound box of candy,
covered with white tissue-paper, girdled with blue ribbon. He set the
box gently beside him upon the table; then from beneath a large, green
blotter drew forth some scribbled sheets. These he placed before him,
and, taking infinite pains with his handwriting, slowly copied:

DEAR LOLA--I presume when you are reading these lines it will be this
afternoon and you will be on the train moving rapidly away from this old
place here farther and farther from it all. As I sit here at my old desk
and look back upon it all while I am writing this farewell letter I hope
when you are reading it you also will look back upon it all and think
of one you called (Alias) Little Boy Baxt