ers three times a day, though he got drunk twice a year for a
month at a time. Al looks very much like him."

"Mrs. Johnson," I said after a minute's silence, while I had decided
whether or not I had better tell her all about it. If a woman's in love
with her husband you can't trust her to keep a secret, but I decided to
try Mrs. Johnson. "I really am not engaged exactly to Alfred Bennett,
though I suppose he thinks so by now if he has got the answer to that
telegram. But--but something has made me--made me think about Judge
Wade--that is he--what do you think of him, Mrs. Johnson?" I concluded
in the most pitifully perplexed tone of voice.

"All alike, Molly; all as much alike as peas in a pod; all except John
Moore, who's the only exception in all the male tribe I ever met! His
marrying once was just accidental and must be forgiven him. She fell in
love with him while he was treating her for typhoid, when his back was
turned as it were, and it was God's own kindness in him that made him
marry her when he found out how it was with the poor thing. There's not
a woman in this town who could marry, that wouldn't marry him at the
drop of his hat--but, thank goodness, that hat will never drop and I'll
have one sensible man to comfort and doctor me down into my old age.
Now, just look at that! Mr. Johnson's come home here in the middle of
the morning and I'll have to get that old paper I hunted out of his desk
for him last night. I wonder how he came to forget it!" It's funny how
Mrs. Johnson always knows what Mr. Johnson wants before he knows himself
and gets it before he asks for it!

As she went out the gate the postman came in and at the sight of another
letter my heart again slunk off into my slippers, and my brain seemed
about to back up in a corner and refuse to work. In a flash it came to
me that men oughtn't to write letters to women very much--they really
don't plow deep enough, they just irritate the top soil. I took this
missive from Alfred, counted all the fifteen pages, put it out of sight
under a book, looked out the window and saw the ginger barber coming
dejectedly around to the side gate from the kitchen--I knew the scene he
had had with Judy, about the bottle encounters of the night before--saw
Mr. Johnson shooed off down the street by Mrs. Johnson; saw the doctor's
car go chucking hurriedly in the garage and then my spirit turned itself
to the wall and refused to be comforted. I tried my best, but failed