est. But, my boy," he cried earnestly,
"if you'll be going to jail, don't whine, lad. Go to jail like a
gentleman, John Barclay, go to jail like a gentleman, and serve your
Lord there like a man."

"Damn cheerful you are, Watts," returned Barclay. "What a lot of Job's
comforters you fellows have been this morning." He went on half
bitterly and half jokingly: "Beginning with the general, continuing
with your travelling salesman friend, and following up with Gabe, who
wants me to get off the board of directors of his bank for the moral
effect of it, and coming on down to you who bid me Godspeed to
jail--I have had a--a--a rather gorgeous morning."

The door-bell tinkled, and a woman's voice called, "Father, father!"

"Yes, Molly," the harness maker answered; "he'll be here pretty soon.
He said for you to wait."

"Come in, for heaven's sake, Molly," cried Barclay, "come back here
and cheer me up."

"Oh, all right--it's you, John? What are you doing back here? I'm so
glad to find you. I've just got the dearest letter from Jane. We won't
talk business or anything--you know how I feel, and how sorry I
am--so just let's read Jane's letter; it has something in it to cheer
you. She said she was going to write it to you the next day--but I'll
read it to you." And so Mrs. Brownwell took from her pocketbook the
crumpled letter and unfolded it. "It's so like Jane--just good hard
sense clear through." She turned the pages hastily, and finally the
fluttering of the sheets stopped. "Oh, yes," she said, "here's the
place--the rest she's told you. Let me see--Oh: 'And, Molly, what do
you think?--there's a duke after Jeanette--a miserable, little,
dried-up, burned-out, poverty-stricken Italian duke. And oh, how much
good it did us both to cut him, and let him know how ill-bred we
considered him, how altogether beneath any wholesome honest girl we
thought such a fellow.' And now, John, isn't this like Jane?"
interposed Mrs. Brownwell. "Listen; she says, 'Molly, do you know, I
am so happy about Jeanette and Neal. We run such an awful risk with
this money--such a horrible risk of unhappiness and misery for the
poor child--heaven knows she would be so much happier without it. And
to think, dear, that she has found the one in the world for her, in
the sweet simple way that a girl should always find him, and that the
money--the menacing thing that hangs like a shadow over her--cannot
by any possibility spoil her life! It makes me happy al