"He is, though," Mrs. Adams maintained. "He's very much of a gentleman,
unless I'm no judge of appearances; and it'll really be nice to have him
in the house."

"No doubt," Alice said, as she opened her door to depart. "I don't
suppose we'll mind having any of 'em as much as we thought we would.
Good-bye."

But her mother detained her, catching her by the arm. "Alice, you do
hate it, don't you!"

"No," the girl said, quickly. "There wasn't anything else to do."

Mrs. Adams became emotional at once: her face cried tragedy, and her
voice misfortune. "There MIGHT have been something else to do! Oh,
Alice, you gave your father bad advice when you upheld him in taking a
miserable little ninety-three hundred and fifty from that old wretch! If
your father'd just had the gumption to hold out, they'd have had to pay
him anything he asked. If he'd just had the gumption and a little manly
COURAGE----"

"Hush!" Alice whispered, for her mother's voice grew louder. "Hush!
He'll hear you, mama."

"Could he hear me too often?" the embittered lady asked. "If he'd
listened to me at the right time, would we have to be taking in boarders
and sinking DOWN in the scale at the end of our lives, instead of going
UP? You were both wrong; we didn't need to be so panicky--that was just
what that old man wanted: to scare us and buy us out for nothing! If
your father'd just listened to me then, or if for once in his life he'd
just been half a MAN----"

Alice put her hand over her mother's mouth. "You mustn't! He WILL hear
you!"

But from the other side of Adams's closed door his voice came
querulously. "Oh, I HEAR her, all right!"

"You see, mama?" Alice said, and, as Mrs. Adams turned away, weeping,
the daughter sighed; then went in to speak to her father.

He was in his old chair by the table, with a pillow behind his head,
but the crocheted scarf and Mrs. Adams's wrapper swathed him no more;
he wore a dressing-gown his wife had bought for him, and was smoking his
pipe. "The old story, is it?" he said, as Alice came in. "The same, same
old story! Well, well! Has she gone?"

"Yes, papa."

"Got your hat on," he said. "Where you going?"

"I'm going down-town on an errand of my own. Is there anything you want,
papa?"

"Yes, there is." He smiled at her. "I wish you'd sit down a while and
talk to me unless your errand----"

"No," she said, taking a chair near him. "I was just going down to see
about some arrangements I was makin