skipper's taste. He told her how him and his sister had lived in their
little home, their own little nest, over there by the shore, for years
and years. He led her out to where she could see the roof of his old
shanty over the sand hills, and he wiped his eyes and raved over it.
You'd think that tumble-down shack was a hunk out of paradise; Adam and
Eve's place in the Garden was a short lobster 'longside of it. Then, he
said, he was took down with an incurable disease. He tried and tried to
get along, but 'twas no go. He mortgaged the shanty to a grasping money
lender--meanin' Poundberry--and that money was spent. Then his sister
passed away and his heart broke; so they took him to the poorhouse.

"Miss Lamont," says he, "good-by. Sometimes in the midst of your
fashionable career, in your gayety and so forth, pause," he says, "and
give a thought to the broken-hearted pauper who has told you his life
tragedy."

Well, now, you take a green girl, right fresh from novels and music
lessons, and spring that on her--what can you expect? Mabel, she cried
and took on dreadful.

"Oh, Mr. Blueworthy!" says she, grabbing his hand. "I'm SO glad you told
me. I'm SO glad! Cheer up," she says. "I respect you more than ever, and
my father and I will--"

Just then the colonel comes puffing up the hill. He looked as if he'd
heard news.

"My child," he says in a kind of horrified whisper, "can you realize
that we have actually passed the night in the--in the ALMSHOUSE?"