"Ef I was like some folks I wouldn't want bitters--though made outer the
simplest yarbs of the yearth, with jest enough sperrit to bring out the
vartoos--ez Deacon Stoer's Balm 'er Gilead is--what yer meaning? Ef
I was like some folks I could lie thar and smoke in the lap o'
idleness--with fourteen beds in the house empty, and nary lodger for one
of 'em. Ef I was that indifferent to havin' invested my fortin in the
good will o' this house, and not ez much ez a single transient lookin'
in, I could lie down and take comfort in profane literatoor. But it
ain't in me to do it. And it wasn't your father's way, Jeff, neither!"

As the elder Briggs's way had been to seek surcease from such trouble at
the gambling table, and eventually, in suicide, Jeff could not deny
it. But he did not say that a full realization of his unhappy venture
overcame him as he closed the blinds of the hotel that night; and that
the half desperate idea of abandoning it then and there to the warring
elements that had resented his trespass on Nature seemed to him an
act of simple reason and justice. He did not say this, for easy-going
natures are not apt to explain the processes by which their content or
resignation is reached, and are therefore supposed to have none.
Keeping to the facts, he simply suggested the weather was unfavorable to
travelers, and again found his place on the page before him. Fixing it
with his thumb, he looked up resignedly. The figure wearily detached
itself from the door-post, and Jeff's eyes fell on his book. "You won't
stop, aunty?" he asked mechanically, as if reading aloud from the page;
but she was gone.

A little ashamed, although much relieved, Jeff fell back again to
literature, interrupted only by the charging of the wind and the heavy
volleys of rain. Presently he found himself wondering if a certain