d out of that."

"So, you wouldn't approve of my marrying Davy?" said the girl.

Her father grunted--chuckled. "I didn't say that. Does he want to
marry you?"

"I didn't say that," retorted Jane. "He's an unattached young man--and
I, being merely a woman, have got to look out for a husband."

Martin looked gloomy. "There's no hurry," said he. "You've been away
six years. Seems to me you might stay at home a while."

"Oh, I'd bring him here, popsy I've no intention of leaving you. You
were in an awful state, when I came home. That mustn't ever happen
again. And as you won't live with Martha and Hugo--why, I've got to be
the victim."

"Yes--it's up to you, Miss, to take care of me in my declining
years.... You can marry Davy--if you want to. Davy--or anybody. I
trust to your good sense."

"If I don't like him, I can get rid of him," said the girl.

Her father smiled indulgently. "That's A LEETLE too up-to-date for an
old man like me," observed he. "The world's moving fast nowadays.
It's got a long ways from where it was when your ma and I were young."

"Do you think Davy Hull will make a career?" asked Jane. She had heard
from time to time as much as she cared to hear about the world of a
generation before--of its bareness and discomfort, its primness, its
repulsive piety, its ignorance of all that made life bright and
attractive--how it quite overlooked this life in its agitation about
the extremely problematic life to come. "I mean a career in politics,"
she explained.

The old man munched and smacked for full a minute before he said,
"Well, he can make a pretty good speech. Yes--I reckon he could be
taken in hand and pushed. He's got a lot of fool college-bred ideas
about reforming things. But he'd soon drop them, if he got into the
practical swing. As soon as he had a taste of success, he'd stop being
finicky. Just now, he's one of those nice, pure chaps who stand off
and tell how things ought to be done. But he'd get over that."

Jane smiled peculiarly--half to herself. "Yes--I think he would. In
fact, I'm sure he would." She looked at her father. "Do you think he
amounts to as much as Victor Dorn?" she asked, innocently.

The old man dropped a half raised spoonful of milk and crackers into
the bowl with a splash. "Dorn--he's a scoundrel!" he exclaimed,
shaking with passion. "I'm going to have that dirty little paper of
his stopped and him put out of town. Impudent puppy!--fou