r smoke a
monogrammed cigarette. Why, my child, that little polish, that little
fineness, is the woman's gift to her man! These Frosts and Parkers: it
was the coarse strength of their grandfathers that got them across the
plains; it was the women who packed the books in the horsehair trunks,
that read the Bibles and cleaned and sewed and prayed in the old home
way. You don't suppose those old miners and grocers, who came later to
be the city fathers, ever had as much education as Joe Hawkes, or half
as much!"

"I wish my father felt as you do, Doc' Ben," Sally said presently, the
brightness dying from her face. "But Pa will never, never--And even if
there were no other reason, why Joe hasn't a steady job--"

"That brings me to what I really want to say to you to-day, Sally," the
old man interrupted her briskly. He opened a desk drawer and took from
it a small, old-fashioned photograph. Sally saw a young woman's form,
disguised under the scallops, ruffles, and pleats of the early
seventies, a bright face under a cascade of ringlets, and a little oval
bonnet set coquettishly awry. "D'ye know who that is?" asked Dr. Ben.

"I--well, yes; I suppose?" murmured Sally sympathetically.

"Yes, it's my wife," he answered. "Mary--Our boy would be thirty. They
went away together--poor girl, poor girl! We wanted a big family,
Sally; we hoped for a houseful of children. And I had her for only
fifteen months--only fifteen months to remember for thirty years!"

Sally was deeply impressed. She thought it strangely flattering in Dr.
Ben to take her into his confidence in this way, and that she would
tell Martie about it as they walked home.

"No," he said musingly. "I never had a child! And Sally, if I had it
all to do over again, I'd marry again. I'd have sons. That's the
citizen's duty. Some day we'll recognize it, and then you bearers of
children will come into your own. There'll be recognition for every one
of them, we'll be the first nation to make our poor women proud and
glad when a child is coming. It's got to be, Sally."

Sally was listening politely, but she was not interested. She had heard
all this before, many times. Dr. Ben's extraordinary views upon the
value of the family were familiar to every one in Monroe. But her
attention was suddenly aroused by the mention of her own name.

"Now, supposing that you and Joe take it into your heads to get married
some day," the doctor was saying, "how about children?"

Sally'