enough to hide it from his wife. A man ought
to want his wife to think well of him whether anybody else does or
not. You see, a woman can make out to live with a man and not love
him, but she can't live with him and despise him. She's jest got to
respect him. But there's some men that never have found that out. They
think that because a woman stands up before a preacher and promises to
love and honor him, that she's bound to do it, no matter what he does.
And some women do. They're like dogs; they'll stick to a man no matter
what he does. Some women never can see any faults in their husbands,
and some sees the faults and covers 'em up and hides 'em from
outsiders. But Mary wasn't that sort. She couldn't deceive herself,
and nobody could deceive her; and when she found out Harvey's meanness
she couldn't help despisin' him in her heart, jest like Michal
despised David when she saw him playin' and dancin' before the Lord.

"There's something I never have understood, and one of 'em is why such
a woman as Mary should 'a' been permitted to marry a man like Harvey
Andrews. It kind o' shakes my faith in Providence every time I think
of it. But I reckon there was a reason for it, whether I can see it or
not."

Aunt Jane's voice ceased. She dropped her knitting in her lap and
leaned back in the old easy-chair. Apparently she was looking at the
dripping syringa bush near the window, but the look in her eyes told
me that she had reached a page in the story that was not for my eyes
or my ears, and I held inviolate the silence that had fallen between
us.

A low, far-off roll of thunder, the last note of the storm-music,
roused her from her reverie.

"Sakes alive, child!" she exclaimed, starting bolt upright. "Have I
been sleepin' and dreamin' and you settin' here? Well, I got through
with my story, anyhow, before I dropped off."

"Surely that isn't all," I said, discontentedly. "What became of Mary
Andrews after Harvey died?"

Aunt Jane laughed blithely.

"No, it ain't all. What's gittin' into me to leave off the endin' of a
story? Mary was married young; and when Harvey died she had the best
part of her life before her, and it was the best part, sure enough.
About a year after she was left a widow she went up to Christian
County to visit some of her cousins, and there she met the man she
ought to 'a' married in the first place. I ain't any hand for second
marriages. 'One man for one woman,' says I; but I've seen so many
se