as
beginning to get a little discouraged. I had saved a little, but I
did not like to spend it all, and I have my sister to take care of."

"I am very glad," Carroll said, still again.

Allbright then looked at him with a little attention, pushing, as it
were, his own self, intensified by joy, aside. "You are not looking
very well, Mr. Carroll," he said, deferentially, and yet with a
kindly concern.

"I am very well," said Carroll. Then he pulled out his watch again,
and Allbright noticed quickly that it was a dollar watch. He
remembered his suspicion. "I must hurry if I am to get my train,"
said Carroll. "You live here, Mr. Allbright?"

"Yes. I have lived here for twenty years."

"Well, I am very glad to hear of your good-fortune. Good-day, Mr.
Allbright."

Carroll had not advanced three paces from Allbright before his feet
glissaded on the thin glare of the pavement, he tried to recover
himself, and came down heavily, striking his head; then he knew no
more for some time.

Chapter XXXVII

Charlotte had expected her father home at a little after six o'clock
that night. That was the train on which he usually arrived lately.
She had not the least idea what he was doing in the City. She
supposed he was in the office as he had been hitherto. She never
inquired. With all the girl's love for her father, she had a decided
respect. She was old-fashioned in her ways of never interfering or
even asking for information concerning a man's business affairs.

Charlotte went down to the station to meet her father, as she was
fond of doing. She had her dinner all ready. It was pretty bad, but
she was innocently unaware of it. In fact, she had much faith in it.
She had a soup which resembled greatly a flour paste, and that was in
its covered tureen on the range-shelf, keeping hot and growing
thicker. She had cooked a cheap cut of beef from a recipe in the
cook-book, and that was drying up by the side of the soup. Poor
Charlotte had no procrastination, but rather the failing of "Haste
makes waste" of the old proverb. She had her cheap cut of beef all
cooked at three o'clock in the afternoon, and also the potatoes, and
the accompanying turnips. Salad at that time of the year she could
not encompass in any form, but she had a singular and shrunken
pudding on the range-shelf beside the other things. She set the
coffee-pot well back where it would only boil gently, and the table
was really beautifully laid. The child's ch