ought to
have been even bigger than it was. Then I gave up."

A shrewd, half-fearful gleam was in the contractor's shifting eyes.

"I know, I know, Mrs. Trott," he gently persisted, "but many and many an
account like that has turned out afterward to be incorrect. You don't
know it, but maybe all three of those papers got their information from
one report. You see, a reporter representing a lot of papers in a sort
of combine goes to a spot like that was and his account is telegraphed
all about over the country. So you see, even if you had seen it in a
hundred papers you wouldn't have to take it as law and gospel."

Mrs. Trott slowly shook her head and moaned softly.

"I wonder if I dare tell her," Cavanaugh debated with himself. "She
almost fainted just now. She may have a weak heart. I must be careful.
I've heard of sudden joy killing." He was silent for a moment; then he
began again: "Mrs. Trott, you are welcome to your opinion, and I reckon
you'll let me have mine. But, to tell you the truth, I never have been
_fully convinced_ that John and Dora was lost in that wreck. I have my
reasons, and they are pretty good ones."

He saw her arched brows meet in a little frown of polite wonderment, and
she was about to speak when little Joel suddenly reappeared at the door.

"Oh, grandmother," he half lisped, in breathless haste, for he had been
running, "I forgot to tell you what mother told me to say. She said for
me to be sure not to forget. She said tell you that she is coming over
after dinner to tell you the best news you ever heard."

"Ah, tell her I'm glad, darling!" Mrs. Trott said, with a smile. And she
went and stooped down before the child and added: "Won't you give old
grandmother a sweet little hug? There! there! that's a darling little
man!" And Cavanaugh saw her pressing the boy to her breast and kissing
his cheeks.

When the child had left she came back to her chair, her face filled with
a rare maternal glow. "If you were a younger man, Mr. Cavanaugh, and
childless, as you now are, I'd advise you to adopt children. I don't
know why or how it is, but I know that persons can love other children
than their own and love them deeply, too. I love Tilly's two-- I really
do. That child there, that little boy with all his cute ways and moods,
takes me back to the childhood of my own son. But I neglected him. How I
could have done it only God knows, but I did, and you know it better
than any one else besides mys