just had the gumption and a little manly COURAGE----"

"Hush!" Alice whispered, for her mother's voice grew louder.
"Hush! He'll hear you, mama."

"Could he hear me too often?" the embittered lady asked. "If
he'd listened to me at the right time, would we have to be taking
in boarders and sinking DOWN in the scale at the end of our
lives, instead of going UP? You were both wrong; we didn't need
to be so panicky--that was just what that old man wanted: to
scare us and buy us out for nothing! If your father'd just
listened to me then, or if for once in his life he'd just been
half a MAN----"

Alice put her hand over her mother's mouth. "You mustn't! He
WILL hear you!"

But from the other side of Adams's closed door his voice came
querulously. "Oh, I HEAR her, all right!"

"You see, mama?" Alice said, and, as Mrs. Adams turned away,
weeping, the daughter sighed; then went in to speak to her
father.

He was in his old chair by the table, with a pillow behind his
head, but the crocheted scarf and Mrs. Adams's wrapper swathed
him no more; he wore a dressing-gown his wife had bought for him,
and was smoking his pipe. "The old story, is it?" he said, as
Alice came in. "The same, same old story! Well, well! Has she
gone?"