y dignified,
cultured and precise old gentleman. Just what resemblance there might
be between him and Captain Zelotes Snow, ex-skipper of the Olive S.,
he could not imagine. He could not repress a grin, and the housekeeper
noticed it.

"Seems funny to you, I presume likely," she said. "Well, now you think
about it. This General Rolleson man was kind of proud and sot in his
ways just as your grandpa is, Albert. He had a daughter he thought all
the world of; so did Cap'n Lote. Along come a person that wanted to
marry the daughter. In the book 'twas Robert Penfold, who had been
a convict. In your grandpa's case, 'twas your pa, who had been a
play-actor. So you see--"

Albert sat up on the sofa. "Hold on!" he interrupted indignantly. "Do
you mean to compare my father with a--with a CONVICT? I want you to
understand--"

Mrs. Ellis held up the dust-cloth. "Now, now, now," she protested.
"Don't go puttin' words in my mouth that I didn't say. I don't doubt
your pa was a nice man, in his way, though I never met him. But 'twan't
Cap'n Lote's way any more than Robert Penfold's was General Rolleson's."

"My father was famous," declared the youth hotly. "He was one of the
most famous singers in this country. Everybody knows that--that is,
everybody but Grandfather and the gang down here," he added, in disgust.

"I don't say you're wrong. Laban tells me that some of those singin'
folks get awful high wages, more than the cap'n of a steamboat, he says,
though that seems like stretchin' it to me. But, as I say, Cap'n Lote
was proud, and nobody but the best would satisfy him for Janie, your
mother. Well, in that way, you see, he reminds me of General Rolleson in
the book."

"Look here, Mrs. Ellis. Tell me about this business of Dad's marrying my
mother. I never knew much of anything about it."

"You didn't? Did your pa never tell you?"

"No."

"Humph! That's funny. Still, I don't know's as 'twas, after all,
considerin' you was only a boy. Probably he'd have told you some day.
Well, I don't suppose there's any secret about it. 'Twas town talk down
here when it happened."

She told him the story of the runaway marriage. Albert listened with
interest and the almost incredulous amazement with which the young
always receive tales of their parents' love affairs. Love, for people of
his age or a trifle older, was a natural and understandable thing, but
for his father, as he remembered him, to have behaved in this way was
incompre