ome girl or other, and they've laid for Tom ever
since and got him to-night, eh?"

The Captain laughed, and then remembering the Doctor's relationship with
the Van Dorns, colored and tried to cover his blunder with: "Just boys,
you know, Doc--just their way."

The Doctor grinned and piped back, "Oh, yes--yes--Cap--I know, boys will
be dogs!"

Toddling home that night the Doctor passed the Van Dorn house. He saw
through the window the young couple in their living-room. The doctor had
a feeling that he could sense the emotions of his daughter's heart. It
was as though he could see her trying in vain to fasten the steel
grippers of her soul into the heart and life of the man she loved. Over
and over the father asked himself if in Tom Van Dorn's heart was any
essential loyalty upon which the hooks and bonds of the friendship and
fellowship of a home could fasten and hold. The father could see the
handsome young face of Van Dorn in the gas light, aflame with the joy of
her presence, but Dr. Nesbit realized that it was a passing flame--that
in the core of the husband was nothing to which a wife might anchor her
life; and as the Doctor clicked his cane on the sidewalk vigorously he
whispered to himself: "Peth--peth--nothing in his heart but peth."

A day came when the parents stood watching their daughter as she went
down the street through the dusk, after she had kissed them both and
told them, and after they had all said they were very happy over it. But
when she was out of sight the hands of the parents met and the Doctor
saw fear in Bedelia Nesbit's face for the first time. But neither spoke
of the fear. It took its place by the vague uneasiness in their hearts,
and two spectral sentinels stood guard over their speech.

Thus their talk came to be of those things which lay remote from their
hearts. It was Mrs. Nesbit's habit to read the paper and repeat the news
to the Doctor, who sat beside her with a book. He jabbed in comments;
she ignored them. Thus: "I see Grant Adams has been made head carpenter
for all the Wahoo Fuel Companies mines and properties." To which the
Doctor replied: "Grant, my dear, is an unusual young man. He'll have ten
regular men under him--and I claim that's fine for a boy in his
twenties--with no better show in life than Grant has had." But Mrs.
Nesbit had in general a low opinion of the Doctor's estimates of men.
She held that no man who came from Indiana and was fooled by men who
wore cotton