difference," she
cried. "Don't you see it doesn't! The salary and all that won't
count--now. It will be a start for Charles, an opportunity for him
to feel that he is a man again, doing a man's work, an honest man's
work. And he will be here where I can be with him, where we can be
together, where it won't be so hard for us to be poor and where
there will be no one who knows us, who knows our story. Oh, Mr.
Winslow, is it really true? If it is, how--how can we ever thank
you? How can I ever show you how grateful I feel?"

Her cheeks were flushed, her lips parted and joy shone in her eager
eyes. Her voice broke a little as she uttered the words. Jed
looked at her and then quickly looked away.

"I--I--don't talk so, Mrs. Armstrong," he pleaded, hastily. "It--
it ain't anything, it ain't really. It just--"

"Not anything? Not anything to find my brother the opportunity he
and I have been praying for? To give me the opportunity of having
him with me? Isn't that anything? It is everything. Oh, Mr.
Winslow, if you can do this for us--"

"Shsh! Sshh! Now, Mrs. Armstrong, please. You mustn't say I'm
doin' it for you. I'm the one that just happened to think of it,
that's all. You could have done it just as well, if you'd thought
of it."

"Perhaps," with a doubtful smile, "but I should never have thought
of it. You did because you were thinking for me--for my brother
and me. And--and I thought you didn't care."

"Eh? . . . Didn't care?"

"Yes. When I left you at the shop this morning after our talk.
You were so--so odd. You didn't speak, or offer to advise me as I
had asked you to; you didn't even say good-by. You just sat there
and let me go. And I didn't understand and--"

Jed put up a hand. His face was a picture of distress.

"Dear, dear, dear!" he exclaimed. "Did I do that? I don't
remember it, but of course I did if you say so. Now what on earth
possessed me to? . . . Eh?" as the idea occurred to him. "Tell
me, was I singin'?"

"Why, yes, you were. That is, you were--were--"

"Makin' a noise as if I'd swallowed a hymn book and one of the
tunes was chokin' me to death? Um-hm, that's the way I sing. And
I was singin' when you left me, eh? That means I was thinkin'
about somethin'. I told Babbie once, and it's the truth, that
thinkin' was a big job with me and when I did it I had to drop
everything else, come up into the wind like a schooner, you know,
and just lay to and