Applegate dropped his head on his chest with a smothered groan. For himself he had not minded the occasional touches of profanity--to do her justice, they were rare--with which Julie emphasized her speech, for they had only seemed a part of the alien, piquantly un-English element in her which attracted him, but when Dora looked up at him with his dead wife’s eyes he could not but acknowledge the justice of her tragic horror of “bad words.” “What have I done?” he asked himself as the child nestled closer, and then, “What shall I do?” for he found himself face to face with a future before whose problems he shrank helplessly. One does not decide upon the merits of falcons according to the traditions of doves, and it would be quite as unjust to judge Julie Applegate from what came to be the standpoint of her husband and his children. There is no doubt that she made life hideous to them, but this result was accidental rather than intentional. There are those to whom the unbridled speech of natures without discipline is as much a matter of course as the sunshine and the rain. If to Applegate and Dora it was thunder-burst and cyclone, whose was the blame? And if one is considering the matter of grievances, Julie certainly had hers. Most acute of all, she had expected to acquire a certain social prominence by her marriage, but was accorded only a grudging toleration by the circle to which the first Mrs. Applegate had belonged. This was the more grinding from the fact that in Belleplaine, as in all small towns of the great Middle-West, social distinctions are based upon personal quality and not upon position. Then, there was Dora. From Julie’s point of view tempers were made to lose, but Dora habitually retained hers with a dignity which, while it endeared her to her father, only exasperated his wife. Julie developed an inordinate jealousy of the girl, and the love of the father and daughter became a rod to scourge them. With the most pacific intentions in the world it was impossible to divine what would or what would not offend Julie. On the occasion of the family quarrel recorded, Julie departed for Pullman, according to her threat, and for a few days thereafter life was delightfully peaceful. Dora exhibited all sorts of housewifely aptitudes and solicitudes, the wheels of the household machinery moved smoothly, and the domestic amenities blossomed unchecked. Julie had been gone a week, a week of golden Indian summer weather, when one day, as Applegate was leaving the house after dinner, he was met by the telegraph boy just coming in. He stopped at the gate and tore the message open. It was from Julie’s brother-in-law, Hopson, and condensed in its irreverent ten words a stupefying amount of information. Applegate stared at it, unable to understand. “_MacDonald has come alive. Claims Julie. High old times. Come._”