Davies strove to explain
and to undeceive. He didn't take her in his arms and kiss away her tears
as he ought to have done, and plead and pet and soothe as she planned he
should do, poor child. It wasn't his way. He strove to appeal to her
judgment and to her common sense, but could not reach them. And then
came to him the great sorrow of his mother's death, peaceful, placid,
hopeful though it was,--and then when she was laid away and he faced the
world again, he found that there were outstanding claims against the
homestead of which, through motives of kindness, both his mother and
himself had been kept in ignorance during her life. Unless he could pay
regularly the interest on a large sum the old place his father loved
must go. It had ever been Percy's plan to hold it, and in the fulness
of time to return perhaps to take his father's place in the church, at
any rate to strive to do so in the community. He had planned to lease it
until he and Almira should be ready to go to housekeeping there if she
remained faithful all these years, but now only by pinching could he
hope to save it at all.

And this he explained, but it made no difference. She would help him
pinch and save and starve if need be. They could live on a crust, and
she could cook and bake and darn and sew and sweep for him. The one
thing she could no longer do was wait, for people were pestering to know
when she was to be married, and some girls had openly hinted that Percy
Davies had changed his mind. Then came the naming of the day, and, as he
was in deep mourning, to her bitter disappointment he said their wedding
must be very simple and quiet,--just a few friends present as witnesses.
She had projected on a smaller scale an imitation of the swell affair
she had seen in the fall, but Percy wouldn't even have a best man. Then
he told her gravely that as they must live so quietly he thought her
aunt should not lay out money on party and dinner dresses and expensive
trifles. Almira should dress very simply as became a poor soldier's
wife, and as he was in deep mourning, and they could not go to dances or
dinners or anything of the kind, that she should so notify her, but
Almira could not thwart her aunt, and Percy's brow darkened when the
trunks arrived. "I fear she looks in return for all this for various
things which I cannot possibly do for her son," said he. He had not seen
the boy for months, and did not know how he might be withstanding the
temptati