he Pryor family strikes me. I think he is a
high-tempered, domineering man, proud as Lucifer! For some cause, just
or not, he is ruining his life and that of his family because he so
firmly believes it just; he is hiding here from his home country, his
relatives, and friends. I think she is, barring you and mother, the
handsomest woman of her age I ever saw----"

All of them laughed, because Sarah Hood was nearly as homely as a woman
could grow, and maybe other people didn't find our mother so lovely as
we thought her. I once heard one of her best friends say she was
"distinctly plain." I didn't see how she could; but she said that.

"--and the most pitiful," Laddie went on. "Sarah, what do you suppose
sends a frail little woman pacing the yard, and up and down the road,
sometimes in storm and rain, gripping both hands over her heart?"

"I suppose it's some shameful thing I don't want you mixed up with!"
said Sarah Hood promptly, and people just shouted.

"Sarah," said Laddie, "I've seen her closely, watched her move, and
studied her expression. There's not one grain of possibility that you,
or mother, or Mrs. Fall, or any woman here, could be any closer
connected with SHAME. Shame there is," said Laddie, "and what a word!
How it stings, burns, withers, and causes heart trouble and hiding; but
shame in connection with that woman, more than shame thrust upon her,
which might come to any of us, at any time, shame that is her error, in
the life of a woman having a face like hers, Sarah, I am ashamed of
you! Your only excuse is that you haven't persisted as I have until
you got to see for yourself."

"I am not much on persistence in the face of a locked door, a cast-iron
man with a big cane, and two raving bulldogs," said Mrs. Hood. "Wait,
young man! Just wait until he sets them on you."

Laddie's head went back and how he laughed.

"Hist! A word with you, Sarah!" he said. "'Member I have a sort of
knack with animals. I never yet have failed with one I undertook to
win. Now those bulldogs of Pryors' are as mild as kittens with a man
who knows the right word. Reason I know, Sarah, I've said the word to
them, separately and collectively, and it worked. There is a contrast,
Sarah, between what I say and do to those dogs, and the kicks and
curses they get from their owner. I'll wager you two to one that if
you can get Mr. Pryor to go into a 'sic-ing' contest with me, I can
have his own dogs at his throa