me. You bring her here, and take the best room. I'll
take your old bunk in there. Hitch up and go after her now. Wait a
minute. Take this and buy some dishes, and curtains for the windows.
That isn't enough. Take this twenty," he added, giving him a bank note.
"Good as you are! Why, she's worth both of us. Any heart that wants to
be forgiven is one of God's hearts. Drive fast, and the stores won't be
shut up. They keep open later Saturday nights. What are you staring at?
I can see the poor thing now, clinging to you."

"Wait a moment, Bill. I guess she'll be afraid to come. I told her what
you said."

"You did? Then go and tell her that I'm the biggest liar on earth. Wait!
I'll go with you."

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE OLD STORY.

A black-eyed little woman was installed in the house. Accepting her
husband's story and her own statement, her life had not been wholly
respectable, but she brought refinement into the animal cage. A new
carpet lay soft and bright upon the floor. The windows, now curtained,
no longer looked like browless eyes staring into cold vacancy. The
dinner table lost the air and the appearance of a feed trough. Not in
words nor in sighs, but in a hundred ways, she proved the sincerity of
her repentance.

The autumn lasted a long time, and wise men said that it would end in a
snarl, and it did, for winter came in a night, like a pack of howling
wolves. But their cold teeth did not bite through the walls of Milford's
sitting-room. Black eyes had looked after the work of a carpenter and a
paper-hanger.

The Professor, thin-clad as he was, welcomed the change in the weather.
The cold that made a dog scamper forced a new energy upon the mind. He
had found that his book required the aid of rain and snow and every
trick that the air could turn. One day he could write better because a
tree in front of his window had been stripped of its leaves. One night
the rattle of sleet graced a period that he had bungled under the
energy-lacking influence of a full moon. This was but a prideful
conceit, for the fact was that, like nearly every impractical man, he
wrote with great ease at all times. Milford had faith in the outcome of
his work, and often visited him at night. And the indorsement of so
shrewd a man had encouraged Mrs. Dolihide and Miss Katherine. Sometimes
the young woman would read a chapter. Once she said: "Ma, this is really
good." It was not much for a daughter to say, but the Professor had been