de till a negro porter in a white uniform came with the
table and their breakfast. It had an inviting look--the fruit, the fried
eggs, the thin-sliced bacon, the hot, brown cakes, dainty toast, and
aromatic coffee, and the child partook of them with unusual relish.

John watched her with strange, new interest. It was a sudden reversal of
a habitual situation. She had waited on him. He was now doing the same
for her, and the performance seemed to hold in abeyance a full
realization of the tragedy in his life. It may have been autosuggestion,
induced by the child's great need of him, but whatever it was was
vaguely soothing. He found himself with his young back to a wall of
miserable fact, valiantly fighting off constantly increeping and
maddening memories which threatened to unman him.

Later that afternoon they reached Bristol, and, as Dora looked weary,
John decided to go to a hotel for the night. There was one near the
station, and to it they went and secured adjoining rooms. While he was
making the arrangements in the office Dora waited for him in the great,
barren-looking parlor, the scant furniture of which was upholstered in
dark-green plush, and when he came for her she was standing at a window,
looking out. The sight of her worried him, for she seemed homesick and
drooped like a storm-tossed bird.

"Now for our supper," he said, cheerfully. But she shook her head. She
was not a bit hungry, she declared. The motion of the car had sickened
her at the stomach.

"Then I'll put you to bed," he said, "and leave you there till I get my
supper."

She acquiesced, and he led her to her room up-stairs. "Tumble in," he
said, still cheerily, and she began slowly to undress, sitting in a big
arm-chair which all but swallowed her diminutive form. She was having
trouble with the knots of her shoe-strings, which, in her haste, she had
tied too carelessly, and he knelt down and unfastened them. "What a baby
you are, after all!" he said, tenderly, a thrill that was almost
parental going through him as he drew off the shoes, observed the thick
coating of dust that was on them and the holes in the heels and toes of
her stockings. "I'll leave your shoes outside the door, and a porter
will clean them before morning and put them back," he said, smiling. He
opened a valise, took out a clean though tattered nightgown she had
brought, and spread it on the bed. Again he thought of Joel Eperson and
wondered if Joel had done all such th