it!"

"It is only the old affair about Alma and Amanda, but now it has taken
on a sort of new aspect."

"What do you mean by a new aspect?"

"It seems," said Jim, slowly, "as if they were making it so I couldn't
do for them."

Hayward stamped his foot. "That does sound new," he said, dryly. "I
never thought Alma Beecher or Amanda Bennet ever objected to have you do
for them."

"Well," said Jim, "perhaps they don't now, but they want me to do it
in their own way. They don't want to feel as if I was giving and they
taking; they want it to seem the other way round. You see, if I were to
deed over my property to them, and then they allowance me, they would
feel as if they were doing the giving."

"Jim, you wouldn't be such a fool as that?"

"No, I wouldn't," replied Jim, simply. "They wouldn't know how to take
care of it, and Mis' Adkins would be left to shift for herself. Joe
Beecher is real good-hearted, but he always lost every dollar he
touched. No, there wouldn't be any sense in that. I don't mean to give
in, but I do feel pretty well worked up over it."

"What have they said to you?"

Jim hesitated.

"Out with it, now. One thing you may be sure of: nothing that you can
tell me will alter my opinion of your two nieces for the worse. As for
poor Joe Beecher, there is no opinion, one way or the other. What did
they say?"

Jim regarded his friend with a curiously sweet, far-off expression.
"Edward," he said, "sometimes I believe that the greatest thing a man's
friends can do for him is to drive him into a corner with God; to be so
unjust to him that they make him understand that God is all that mortal
man is meant to have, and that is why he finds out that most people,
especially the ones he does for, don't care for him."

Hayward looked solemnly and tenderly at the other's almost rapt face.
"You are right, I suppose, old man," said he; "but what did they do?"

"They called me in there about a week ago and gave me an awful talking
to."

"About what?"

Jim looked at his friend with dignity. "They were two women talking,
and they went into little matters not worth repeating," said he. "All
is-they seemed to blame me for everything I had ever done for them,
and for everything I had ever done, anyway. They seemed to blame me for
being born and living, and, most of all, for doing anything for them."

"It is an outrage!" declared Hayward. "Can't you see it?"

"I can't seem to see anything plain about it,