ng to a man who was unworthy of one day of
her life. It was a pathetic spectacle to see the faded wife standing
helpless in the shadow of her husband's selfishness, having sacrificed
youth, beauty and everything that woman holds dear. It did not matter
to Palmer that she was once a school teacher, more than a fair musician,
courted by numbers who could have made her useful to society and happy
in her life. It did not matter to Palmer that she had burned up much of
her attractiveness over the cooking stove; that she lost more of it at
the washtub; in caring for and rearing the children that had
unfortunately come to them. The slaving she had gone through in all
their married life to help her husband to get on in the world was all
lost upon the selfish man who never gave a thought to her sufferings. He
actually treated her if as she had been the cause of his failures, and
seemed ashamed of her when younger and more attractive women were near.

Her two children, somewhere in Missouri in the keeping of her mother,
seemed her only hope in life and the only time the poor crushed soul
evidenced interest in anything was when tidings came from the children
or she could prevail upon their thankless father to send them a little
money. The mother's wardrobe was scanty that the darlings of her heart
might be better clad.

Aunt Susan wore a sun-bonnet almost continuously that she might better
keep in place mustard plasters and horse radish leaves to relieve the
neuralgia pains. Alfred presumed that Mrs. Palmer was similarly affected
since she always wore a sun-bonnet. That was before they left Palmer's
house. Afterwards he became convinced that the woman wore the sun-bonnet
to conceal the lines of sorrow in her once fine face.

Rev. Gideon was the last of the trio whom Alfred figured out. He had
married Palmer's sister. They went to a foreign country as missionaries;
Gideon's health gave way under the tropical climate. He returned to this
country and had since made his home with the Palmers. But little was
learned of the wife. She still lived, and if remittances were not
forthcoming, Gideon was on the rack. In fact, each one of her
complaining letters made Gideon turn more yellow in color, sit up later
and get up earlier than usual, no matter how poor Gideon suffered. If he
was ailing and Palmer noticed it, he would sneer and jerk out: "Huh! Got
a letter from Sis, did you? S'pose she wants you to go back to China.
Say Gideon, that