time for knowing how to treat a man just right.

"That feller'll be lucky, gals," he added in tremulous tones. "I hope
he'll appreciate yew as I allers done."

Then Abe went to join Angy in the room which the sisters had given to
him that bitter day when the cry of his heart had been very like unto:

"_Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani_!"

After all, what was there of his and Angy's here? Their garments they
did not need now. They would leave them behind for the other old couple
that was to come. There was nothing else but some simple gifts. He took
up a pair of red wristlets that Mrs. Homan had knit, and tucked them in
his new overcoat pocket. He also took Abigail's bottle of "Jockey Club"
which he had despised so a few days ago, and tucked that in his
watch-pocket. When he bought himself a watch, he would buy a new clock
for the dining-room down-stairs, too,--a clock with no such asthmatic
strike as the present one possessed. All his personal belongings--every
one of them gifts--he found room for in his pockets. Angy had even less
than he. Yet they had come practically with nothing--and compared with
that nothing, what they carried now seemed much. Angy hesitated over the
pillow-shams. Did they belong to them or to the new couple to come? Abe
gazed at the shams too. They had been given to him and Angy last
Christmas by all the sisters. They were white muslin with white cambric
frills, and in their centers was embroidered in turkey-red cotton,
"Mother," on one pillow, "Father," on the other. Every sister in the
Home had taken at least one stitch in the names.

Father and Mother--not Angy and Abe! Why Father and Mother? A year ago
no one could have foreseen the fortune, nor have prophesied the
possession of the room by another elderly couple.

Angy drew near to Abe, and Abe to Angy. They locked arms and stood
looking at the pillows. He saw, and she saw, the going back to the old
bedroom in the old home across the woods and over the field--the going
back. And in sharp contrast they each recalled the first time that they
had stepped beneath that roof nearly half a century ago,--the first
home-coming,--when her mother-heart and his father-heart had been filled
with the hope of children--children to bless their marriage, children to
complete their home, children to love, children to feed them with love
in return.

"Let's adopt some leetle folks," said Angy, half in a whisper. "I'm
afeard the old place'll seem lonesome wi