as I am,
and I so plain and uneddicated."

"You mustn't worry," she answered, bending forward in all the
queenliness of her braided wreath and her bare shoulders, "you mustn't
worry--not for a minute. It was natural that you should come to your
brother at once, and, of course, we want you to stay with us."

I had never seen her fail when social intuition guided her, and she did
not fail now. He glanced down at his clothes in a pleased, yet
hesitating, manner.

"These did very well on Sunday in Pocahontas," he said, "but somehow
they don't seem to suit here; I reckon so many flowers and lights kind
of dazzle my eyes."

"They do perfectly well," answered Sally, speaking in a firm, direct way
as if she were talking to a child; "but if you would feel more
comfortable in some of Ben's clothes, he has any number of them at your
service. He is about your height, is he not?"

"To think of little Benjy growin' so tall," he remarked with a kind of
ecstasy, and when we went into the library for a smoke, he insisted upon
measuring heights with me against the ledge of the door. Then, alone
with me and the cheerful crackling of the log fire, his embarrassment
disappeared, and he began to ask a multitude of eager questions about
myself and Jessy and my marriage.

"And so pa died," he remarked sadly, between the long whiffs of his
pipe.

"I'm not sure it wasn't the best thing he ever did," I responded.

"Well, you see, Benjy, he wa'nt a worker, and when a man ain't a worker
there's mighty little to stand between him and drink. Now, ma, she was a
worker."

"And we got it from her. That's why we hate to be idle, I suppose."

"Did it ever strike you, Benjy," he enquired solemnly, after a minute,
"that in the marriage of ma and pa the breeches were on the wrong one of
'em? Pa wa'nt much of a man, but he would have made a female that we
could have been proud of. With all the good working qualities, we never
could be proud of ma when we considered her as a female."

"Well, I don't know, but I think she was the best we ever had."

"We are proud of Jessy," he pursued reflectively.

"Yes, we are proud of Jessy," I repeated, and as I uttered the words, I
remembered her beautiful blighted look, while she sat cold and silent,
crumbling her bit of bread.

"And we are proud of you, Benjy," he added, "but you ain't any
particular reason to be proud of me. You can't be proud of a man that
ain't had an eddication."

"Well, the educ