ce,
certainly: sallow and drawn with suffering,--one of those hopelessly
pathetic faces, barely saved from the grotesque by a pair of dull,
wistful eyes. Not that Joel Brandt saw anything either grotesque or
pathetic about the man.

"Another sickly looking stranger outside, Barbara, wants to try the air
up here. Can you keep him? Or maybe the Fox's'll give him a berth."

Mrs. Brandt shook her head in a house-wifely meditation.

"No; Mrs. Fox can't, that's certain. She has an asthma and two
bronchitises there now. What's the matter with him, Joel?"

The stranger's harsh, resonant cough answered.

"Keep him?--to be sure. You might know I'd keep him, Joel; the night
air's no place for a man to cough like that. Bring him into the kitchen
right away."

The newcomer spread his bony hands over Mrs. Brandt's cheery fire, and
the soft, dull eyes followed her movements wistfully.

"The fire feels kind o' homey, ma'am; Californy ain't much of a place
for fires, it 'pears."

"Been long on the coast, stranger?" Joel squared himself
interrogatively.

"'Bout a week. I'm from Indianny. Brice's my name--Posey Brice the boys
'n the glass-mill called me. I wuz blowed up in a glass-mill oncet." The
speaker turned to show an ugly scar on his neck. "Didn't know where I
wuz fer six weeks--thought I hadn't lit. When I come to, there wuz Loisy
potterin' over me; but I ain't been rugged sence."

"Married?"

The man's answer broke through the patient homeliness of his face at
once. He fumbled in his pocket silently, like one who has no common
disclosure to make.

"What d' ye think o' them, stranger?"

Joel took the little, rusty, black case in his hands reverently. A
woman's face, not grand, nor fair even, some bits of tawdry finery
making its plainness plainer; and beside it a round-eyed boy plumped
into a high chair, with two little feet sticking sturdily out in Joel's
face.

Mrs. Brandt looked over her husband's shoulder with kindly curiosity.

"The boy favors you amazingly about the mouth; but he's got his mother's
eyes, and they're sharp, knowin' eyes, too. He's a bright one, I'll be
bound."

"Yours, I reckon?"

"Yes, that's Loisy an' the boy," fighting the conscious pride in his
voice like one who tries to wear his honors meekly.

He took the well-worn case again, gazing into the two faces an instant
with helpless yearning, and returned it to its place. The very way he
handled it was a caress, fastening the little b