The father, a crafty man, with no visible means of support, lived mostly by his wits. He was handsome, and humorous in a droll way. Never lifting his hand to help his over-worked wife, he would yet say ingratiatingly, “Mother, I don’t like to see you work so hard--we are not worthy of it.” And she, knowing how lazy he was, how it was all talk, would beam on him, proud of his good looks--the handsome father of her handsome sons--pleased with the affectionate protestations that he shouted in her deaf ears. She never criticized him or her sons to others; but sometimes her lips would shut in an emphatic way and her eyes say unutterable things if she thought herself unobserved; but the face she turned to others was innocent of all this. How her eyes would shine as she watched her sons start out of the house, well dressed, with manly carriage, and that air of distinction that never wholly left them! and when they came home intoxicated, how fertile she was in resources to get them quietly out of sight; how apt in concealing the loquacity induced by a lesser degree of intoxication! An incident in her earlier days put her on a pedestal in my regard. Jean, her daughter, a fiery girl with coal-black eyes and hair was witty and irresponsible, as I have said, but energetic and warm-hearted. The neighbours knew her to be capable of escapades of which her doting mother was innocent! More than once she had been seen creeping down the slanting veranda-roof and down the porch pillars, from which she dropped softly to the ground. But no one dared acquaint her mother with the fact. In the course of time Jean was missing. Her brother traced her to a neighbouring town, and going to the hotel where she and her lover were staying, so arranged it that when they came into the dining-room, there he sat confronting them!