would feel better if you lay back on the pillows?" she urged.

Then the bell rang, and before Jane could swallow her sobs, her sister
ushered in Jimmy and Pussy Wrenn, who were closely followed by the
ponderous figure of Uncle Meriweather, a gouty but benign old gentleman,
whose jet-black eyebrows and white imperial gave him a misleading
military air.

"Well, well, my dear, what's this I hear about Charley?" demanded Cousin
Jimmy, whose sprightly manner was never sprightlier than in the hour of
tragedy or the house of mourning. "What does he mean by letting you run
away from him?"

"I've done my duty by Charley. I've never, never failed in my duty!"
wept Jane, breaking down on Pussy's tender bosom, and waking the
sleeping baby.

"We know, darling, we know," said Pussy, patting Jane's shoulder, while
Jimmy drew a white silk handkerchief from his pocket, and hid his face
under the pretence of blowing his nose.

To see a woman cry never failed to wring a sympathetic tear from Jimmy.
Though he was a man of hard common sense, possessed of an inflexible
determination to make money, there was a soft spot inside of him which
was reached only by the distress of one of the opposite sex. The
suffering--particularly the financial suffering--of men left him
unmoved. He could foreclose a mortgage or press a debt (as long as the
debtor's wife or daughter did not appeal to him) as well as another; but
the instant a skirt fluttered on the horizon that soft something inside
of him appeared, as he expressed it, "to give way." Apart from their