The father said nothing. The son continued:

"It is unfortunate to be sacrificed like that." Then Father Tuvache, in
an angry tone, said:

"Are you going to reproach us for having kept you?" And the young man
said, brutally:

"Yes, I reproach you for having been such simpletons. Parents like you
make the misfortune of their children. You deserve that I should leave
you."

The old woman wept over her plate. She moaned, as she swallowed the
spoonfuls of soup, half of which she spilled: "One may kill one's self
to bring up children."

Then the boy said, roughly: "I'd rather not have been born than be what
I am. When I saw the other my heart stood still. I said to myself: 'See
what I should have been now!'" He arose: "See here, I feel that I would
do better not to stay here, because I should bring it up against you
from morning till night, and I should make your life miserable. I shall
never forgive you that, you know!"

The two old people were silent, downcast, in tears.

He continued: "No, the thought of that would be too hard. I'd rather go
look for a living somewhere else."

He opened the door. A sound of voices entered. The Vallins were
celebrating the return of their child.

XI

PROVIDENCE AND MRS. URMY

The Story of an International Marriage

By ARMIGER BARCLAY and OLIVER SANDYS

LADY HARTLEY (_nee_ Miss Persis Van Ness) gave a little gasp. In her
excitement the paper rustled noisily to her knee.

"O-h! Have you seen this?" She shot the _Morning Post_ across the
breakfast table to Mrs. Rufus P. Urmy, with her finger marking a
paragraph.

Mrs. Urmy glanced at it. "I guess it ought to corral him right away,"
she said, with the merest suspicion of embarrassment. "You see, it's
Jeannette's last chance. Two seasons in England and never a catch, so
I----"

"_You_ did it?" Lady Hartley looked at her friend in round-eyed wonder.

"I--I had to do something," allowed Mrs. Urmy, with a dawning suspicion
that perhaps she had, after all, run afoul of British conventions, which
she found as difficult of comprehension as her regular morning study of
Debrett.

"But Jeannette!"

"That's so. Jeannette'll raise Cain." Mrs. Urmy got up from the table.
"It's this a-way, Persis. I reckon I fixed your little affair up with
Lord Hartley to home, and you've got to thank me for it. Now, I'm trying
to do the same for my girl. She can't, or she won't, play her own hand.
Every chance she's had she's let sli