that half enough
has been said, although I am aware of committing an absurdity when I
recommend voluble speech on the subject of silence. Jesting and
paradoxes aside, however, the silent woman wields a power known only to
the man toward whom her silence is directed.

In this particular case the power was all for the best. Erelong the
sister-in-law obtained such mastery over the forlorn household that she
held not only the fate of the little ones, but that of the father as
well, in the hollow of her hand.

Two years slipped by, and then the neighborhood that had dozed off, as
it were, awoke to hear that the sister was going to marry that awful
man.

At once the vigilance committee arose, and took the case in hand.

"It can't be possible," it cried to the woman.

"Yes, it is true," she said.

"Why, don't you know that he killed your sister?"

"I know he did."

"And you are going to marry him, in face of that?"

"Yes."

"Well, he'll kill you."

"Oh, no, he won't kill me"--there was a peculiar light in her eyes that
puzzled them.

"What can you want to marry such a man for?" they cried, coming back to
the original question.

"To keep the children. If I don't marry him, some one else will, and
those children will go out of my hands."

Her devotion to the motherless brood had been past praise. There was
nothing more to be said, and if there had been it would have availed
nothing, for the sister had a mind of her own. She was one of those
handsome women, who walk this earth like queens, and to whom lesser folk
defer.

She married, and lo! the neighborhood was agog once more, for strange
stories came floating from out that handsome house, and it appeared for
a time that instead of his killing her she was like to kill him.

I remember one tale in particular, which my mother who, by the way, was
no gossip, and was as peaceable as a barnyard fowl, was in the habit of
rehearsing before a chosen few, occasionally, with a quiet relish that
was amusing, considering the fact that ordinarily any comment on her
neighbors' affairs was alien to her. It appeared that after a short
wedding trip, during which the bridegroom had several times shown the
cloven foot, the couple returned to their domicile. Probably the maids
who had lived there for some years and were devoted to the new wife, had
been warned of what was coming. At all events, they accepted everything
as a matter of course.

Upon the evening of the married