excited and eager, was made ready for the journey. Gerhardt had
been wandering about, restless as a lost spirit, while the process of
dressing was going on; now that the hour had actually struck he was
doing his best to control his feelings. He could see that the
five-year-old child had no conception of what it meant to him. She was
happy and self-interested, chattering about the ride and the
train.

"Be a good little girl," he said, lifting her up and kissing her.
"See that you study your catechism and say your prayers. And you won't
forget the grandpa--what?--" He tried to go on, but his
voice failed him.

Jennie, whose heart ached for her father, choked back her emotion.
"There," she said, "if I'd thought you were going to act like
that--" She stopped.

"Go," said Gerhardt, manfully, "go. It is best this way." And he
stood solemnly by as they went out of the door. Then he turned back to
his favorite haunt, the kitchen, and stood there staring at the floor.
One by one they were leaving him--Mrs. Gerhardt, Bass, Martha,
Jennie, Vesta. He clasped his hands together, after his old-time
fashion, and shook his head again and again. "So it is! So it is!" he
repeated. "They all leave me. All my life goes to pieces."

CHAPTER XXVIII

During the three years in which Jennie and Lester had been
associated there had grown up between them a strong feeling of mutual
sympathy and understanding. Lester truly loved her in his own way. It
was a strong, self-satisfying, determined kind of way, based solidly
on a big natural foundation, but rising to a plane of genuine
spiritual affinity. The yielding sweetness of her character both
attracted and held him. She was true, and good, and womanly to the
very center of her being; he had learned to trust her, to depend upon
her, and the feeling had but deepened with the passing of the
years.

On her part Jennie had sincerely, deeply, truly learned to love
this man. At first when he had swept her off her feet, overawed her
soul, and used her necessity as a chain wherewith to bind her to him,
she was a little doubtful, a little afraid of him, although she had
always liked him. Now, however, by living with him, by knowing him
better, by watching his moods, she had come to love him. He was so
big, so vocal, so handsome. His point of view and opinions of anything
and everything were so positive. His pet motto, "Hew to the line, let
the chips fall where they may," had clung in her b