His mother's tragic dark eyes entreated him timidly.

"I'm awfully afraid Fanny's let herself get all wrapped up in the
minister," she half whispered. "And if he--"

"I'd like to thrash him!" interrupted her son in a low tense voice.
"He's a white-livered, cowardly hypocrite, that's my name for Wesley
Elliot!"

"But, Jim, that ain't goin' to help Fanny--what you think of Mr.
Elliot. And anyway, it ain't so. It's something else. Do
you--suppose, you could--You wouldn't like to--to speak to him,
Jim--would you?"

"What! speak to that fellow about my sister? Why, mother, you must be
crazy! What could I say?--'My sister Fanny is in love with you; and I
don't think you're treating her right.' Is that your idea?"

"Hush, Jim! Don't talk so loud. She might hear you."

"No danger of that, mother; she was lying on her bed, her face in the
pillow, when I looked in her room ten minutes ago. Said she had a
headache and wasn't going."

Mrs. Dodge drew a deep, dispirited sigh.

"If there was only something a body could do," she began. "You might
get into conversation with him, kind of careless, couldn't you, Jim?
And then you might mention that he hadn't been to see us for two