e say then, Aunt Euphronasia?"

"Who? Miss Mitty? She sez 'huh' again jes' ez she done befo'. Miss Mitty
ain't de kind dat's gwinter eat her words, honey. W'at she sez, she sez,
en she's gwinter stick up ter hit. The hull time I 'uz dar, I ain' never
yearn nuttin' but 'huh!' pass thoo her mouf."

"I knew she was proud, Ben, but I didn't know she was so cruel as to
visit it on this precious angel," said Sally, on the point of tears;
"and I believe Jessy is the same way. Nobody cares about him except his
doting mother."

"What's become of his doting father?"

"Oh, his doting father is entirely too busy with his darling stocks."

"Sally," I asked seriously, "don't you understand that all
this--everything I'm doing--is just for you and the boy?"

"Is it, Ben?" she responded, and the next minute, "Of course, I
understand it. How could I help it?"

She was always reasonable--it was one of her greatest charms, and I knew
that if I were to open my mind to her at the moment, she would enter
into my troubles with all the insight of her resourceful sympathy. But I
kept silence, restrained by some masculine instinct that prompted me to
shut the business world outside the doors of home.

"Well, I must go downtown, dear; I don't see much of you these days, do
I?"

"Not much, but I know you're here to stay and that's a good deal of
comfort."

"I'm glad you've got the baby. He keeps you company."

She looked up at me with the puzzling expression, half humour, half
resentment, I had seen frequently in her face of late. If she stopped to
question whether I really imagined that a child of three months was all
the companionship required by a woman of her years, she let no sign of
it escape the smiling serenity of her lips. On her knees little Benjamin
lay perfectly quiet while he stared straight up at the ceiling with his
round blue eyes like the eyes of an animated doll.

"Yes, he is company," she answered gently; and stooping to kiss them
both, I ran downstairs, hurried into my overcoat, and went out into the
street.

As I closed the door behind me, I saw the General's buggy turning the
corner, and a minute later he drew up under the young maples beside the
pavement, and made room for me under the grey fur rug that covered his
knees.

"I don't like the way things are behaving in Wall Street, Ben," he said.
"Did that last smash cost you anything?"

"About two hundred thousand dollars, General, but I hadn't spoken of
it