e really has undertaken a lot, but I reckon
she'll pull through, someway or other."

"Pa says she's managed to get out of old Welborne's debt," Mrs. Henley
went on, taking her knee in her hands and lifting her foot from the
ground and swinging it to and fro. "Lots of folks thought he'd finally
sell her out of house and home. I didn't think, myself, that she'd ever
pay out, but she seems to have succeeded. I give her full credit for all
she is, Alfred. I'm not the sort of woman that underrates another just
to be doing it. She's a stanch friend of yours. It is a good deal for me
to admit, but she gave me a straight talk once that set me to thinking.
I've never let on, but what she said made a deep impression on me."

The speaker paused, as if waiting for her words to take root and sprout
in his comprehension, but he said nothing--only sat staring at her, as
if trying to divine her subtle drift.

"It was while you was away, Alfred," she continued, "and--and there was
so much talk about what I was doing at that time, you remember, to--to
show respect for Dick's memory. For a girl as young as she is, she said
some powerful strong things. She thought I wasn't acting right toward
you, and told me so to my face. I went on with my plans, but I've often
thought of her advice. You may have noticed that I hain't talked as much
about the--the monument as I did, and I haven't been to see it as often
as I used to. Dixie Hart made me look at it from the outside to some
extent, and with that I began to be more considerate of you. I saw you
wasn't the same as you was at first--I might say, as you was all along
when you and Dick was both taking me out, and as you was--for that
matter--just before and after me and you got married. In fact, Alfred,
you are getting to be a sort o' puzzle to me. Even to-night at supper
you seemed to be in some sort of far-off dream or other. You'd lift up a
fork or a spoon and hold it a long time before you'd put it in your
mouth, and once I caught you gazing straight at me with the blankest
look I ever saw on a human face. You don't seem the same. I don't mean
that you haven't got a _healthy_ look, for that would bother me a lot,
but you are--well, you are just different."

"Don't you worry," Henley heard himself saying, aghast at the cliffs and
chasms ahead of him. "Don't worry about me if I seem to have my mind off
at times. I've made some trades lately, and got the best end of 'em. I'm
a natural trader