Dick and Letty, Dick would never have gone away from Beulah, or if he
had gone, he surely would have come back to see how Letty fared. A
fellow yearns for news of the girl he loves even when he is content to
let silence reign between him and his old father.--What makes you
think there was anything particular, Reba?"

"What makes anybody think anything!--I wonder why some people are
born props, and others leaners or twiners? I believe the very
nursing-bottle leaned heavily against Letty when she lay on her infant
pillow. I didn't know her when she was a child, but I believe that
when she was eight all the other children of three and five in the
village looked to her for support and guidance!"

"It's a great vocation--that of being a prop," smiled the minister, as
he peeled a red Baldwin apple, carefully preserving the spiral and
eating it first.

"I suppose the wobbly vine thinks it's grand to be a stout trellis
when it needs one to climb on, but doesn't the trellis ever want to
twine, I wonder?" And Reba's tone was doubtful.

"Even the trellis leans against the house, Reba."

"Well, Letty never gets a chance either to lean or to twine! Her
family, her friends, her acquaintances, even the stranger within her
gates, will pass trees, barber poles, telephone and telegraph poles,
convenient corners of buildings, fence posts, ladders, and lightning
rods for the sake of winding their weakness around her strength. When
she sits down from sheer exhaustion, they come and prop themselves
against her back. If she goes to bed, they climb up on the footboard,