man that's once been
beaten. Men air born mean, I know, it's thar natur, an' the good Lord
intended it; but, all the same, it's my belief that mighty few women
come in for a downright beatin' unless they've bent thar backs to
welcome it. It takes two to make a beatin' the same as a courtin', an'
whar the back ain't ready, the blows air slow to fall."

"I never saw her but once, and then I ran away," I remarked to fill in
her pause.

"Wall, you didn't miss much, or you either, ma'am," she rejoined
politely; "she was the kind that makes an honest woman ashamed to belong
to a sex that's got to thrive through foolishness, an' to git to a place
by sidlin' backwards. That wa'nt yo' ma's way, Benjy, an' I've often
said that I don't believe she ever hung back in her life an' waited for
a man to hand her what she could walk right up an' take holt of without
his help. 'The woman that waits on a man has got a long wait ahead of
her,' was what she used to say."

Rising to her feet, she stood with the empty plate in her hand, and her
back ceremoniously bent in a parting bow.

"Is that yo' youngest? Now, ain't he a fine baby!" she burst out, as
little Benjamin appeared, crowing, in the arms of Aunt Euphronasia, "an
he's got all the soft, pleasant look of yo' po' pa a'ready."

I opened the door, and with a last effusive good-by, she passed out in
her stiff, rustling black, which looked as if she had gone into
perpetual mourning.

"Will you have some syllabub, Ben?" enquired Sally primly, as the door
closed.

"Sally, how will you stand it?"

"She wants to be kind--she really wants to be."

Crossing moodily to the table, I pushed aside the waffles, the muffins,
and the syllabub, with an angry gesture.

"It is what I came from, after all. It is my class."

"Your class?" she repeated, laughing and sobbing together with her arms
on my shoulders. "There's nobody else in the whole world in your class,
Ben."

CHAPTER XXVIII

IN WHICH SALLY STOOPS

A week or two later the General stopped me as I was leaving his office.

"I don't like the look of you, Ben. What's the matter?"

"My head has been troubling me, General. It's been splitting for a week,
and I can't see straight."

"You've thought too much, that's the mischief. Why not cut the whole
thing and go West with me to-morrow in my car? I'll be gone for a
month."

"It's out of the question. A man who is over head and ears in debt
oughtn't to be spinning about