t
type, but he's the judge. I suppose people thought that I would never
marry anybody like you, either," he added jokingly.

"Yes, you did make a terrible mistake," jested his wife in return. "You
worked awfully hard to make it."

"I was young! I was young! You want to remember that," retorted Witla.
"I didn't know much in those days."

"You don't appear to know much better yet," she replied, "do you?"

He smiled and patted her on the back. "Well, anyhow I'll have to make
the best of it, won't I? It's too late now."

"It certainly is," replied his wife.

Eugene and Angela were given his old room on the second floor,
commanding a nice view of the yard and the street corner, and they
settled down to spend what the Witla parents hoped would be months of
peaceful days. It was a curious sensation to Eugene to find himself back
here in Alexandria looking out upon the peaceful neighborhood in which
he had been raised, the trees, the lawn, the hammock replaced several
times since he had left, but still in its accustomed place. The thought
of the little lakes and the small creek winding about the town were a
comfort to him. He could go fishing now and boating, and there were some
interesting walks here and there. He began to amuse himself by going
fishing the first week, but it was still a little cold, and he decided,
for the time being, to confine himself to walking.

Days of this kind grow as a rule quickly monotonous. To a man of
Eugene's turn of mind there was so little in Alexandria to entertain
him. After London and Paris, Chicago and New York, the quiet streets of
his old home town were a joke. He visited the office of the _Appeal_ but
both Jonas Lyle and Caleb Williams had gone, the former to St. Louis,
the latter to Bloomington. Old Benjamin Burgess, his sister's husband's
father, was unchanged except in the matter of years. He told Eugene that
he was thinking of running for Congress in the next campaign--the
Republican organization owed it to him. His son Henry, Sylvia's husband,
had become a treasurer of the local bank. He was working as patiently
and quietly as ever, going to church Sundays, going to Chicago
occasionally on business, consulting with farmers and business men about
small loans. He was a close student of the several banking journals of
the country, and seemed to be doing very well financially. Sylvia had
little to say of how he was getting along. Having lived with him for
eleven years, she had b