a cane and had his monogram on his
socks--that was enough for me--and a red tie on him, so red you'd think
his throat was cut. I says to myself, I don't want that shop window
Judy round my house,' but Evelyn thought he was the best going. Funny
thing that that girl was the very one to laugh at dudes before that,
but she stuck it out that he was a fine chap. She's game, all right, my
girl is. She stays right with the job. I wrote and told her to come on
back and I'd give her every cent I have--but she pitched right into me
about not asking Fred. Here's her letter. Oh, she's a spunky one!" He
was fumbling in his pockets as he spoke. Drawing out a long pocketbook,
he took out a letter. He deliberately opened the envelope and read.
Fred with difficulty held back his hand from seizing it.

"Listen to this how she lit into me: 'When you ask me to leave my
husband you ask me to do a dishonorable thing--'"

Fred heard no more--he hung on to the seat of his chair with both
hands, breathing hard, but the old man took no notice of him and read
on:

"'Fred is in every way worthy of your respect, but you have been
utterly unjust to him from the first. I will enjoy poverty and
loneliness with him rather than endure every pleasure without him.'"

Fred's world had suddenly righted itself--he saw it all now--this was
the man she was writing to--this was the man who had tried to induce
her to leave him.

"I haven't really anything against this Fred chap--maybe his clothes
were all right. I was brought up in the lumber business, though, and I
don't take to flowered stockings and monograms--I kept wondering how
he'd look in overalls! What was really wrong with me--and you'll never
know how it feels until you have a girl of your own, and she leaves
you--was that I was jealous of the young gent for taking my girl when
she was all I had."

Fred suddenly understood many things; a fellow feeling for the old man
filled his heart, and in a flash he saw the past in an entirely
different light.

He broke out impetuously, "She thinks of you the same as ever, I know
she does--" then, seeing his mistake, he said, "I know them slightly,
and I've heard she was lonely for you."

"Then why didn't she tell me? She has always kept up these spunky
letters to me, and said she was happy, and all that--she liked to live
here, she said. What's this Fred fellow like?" The old man leaned
toward him confidentially.

"Oh, just so-so," Fred answered, try