"I'm glad for you, Mr. Dalton!" said Aunt Jane heartily, "and I know you'll be good to her. I can see it in your face--that you treat her well." The face clouded. "I mean to--but I never seem to know just how she'll take things----" "What's been the trouble?" asked Aunt Jane. "She didn't tell you?" Aunt Jane shook her head. "We didn't talk much--just visited together a little and got acquainted." He seemed thoughtful. "I think the real trouble is something that never gets put into words; and it isn't so easy to put in words.... I'm a failure, I guess!" He looked up apologetically. "I don't know that you will understand. But I've had chances--every sort of chance--and I've never made good." "Never made money, you mean," said Aunt Jane placidly. He looked up quickly. "That's it!" "What seemed to be the matter?" "I don't know." He was looking before him. "When I got through college, I thought I was going to get on all right--thought I should be a big man some day." He looked at her and smiled. "You look pretty big and strong," assented Aunt Jane. He laughed out. "I'm big enough this way!" He reached out his arms from the broad shoulders and clinched the hands a little. "I can tackle anything in sight. But--" he leaned forward--"it's the things that are out of sight that I can't seem to come to grips with." "That's what bothers most folks, I guess--men folks special," said Aunt Jane. "I've known a good many men, and I like them.... I like men better'n I do women," she added a little guiltily, "but sometimes it seems to me, when I'm with 'em, as if they were blind--a little mite blind about what's going on inside." She rocked a little. "Maybe it's just because they're slow," she said reflectively. "They can't see quick, the way women can, and they're kind of afraid of what they can't see--some like children in the dark." She was smiling at him. He nodded. "You've got it! I shouldn't wonder if that's the way Edith feels. She's never said it just that way. But she doesn't seem to understand what I'm after; and I can't tell her--because I don't know myself," he added candidly. "So while you're figuring it out, she calls it something else?" said Aunt Jane. "That's it! And then we get--angry, and I can't even think. It seems to paralyze me, some way." Aunt Jane was smiling to herself. "'Most seems as if it would have been a better way to have men folks marry men folks--" She looked at him shrewdly. "They'd get along more comfortable?" He shook his head and laughed. "I want Edith just the way she is. But I wish----" "Yes--we all do." Aunt Jane nodded. "We like what we've got--pretty well. But we're always wishing it was a little mite different some way.... I like my work here; and I do it about as well as I know how. But some days I wish--" She broke off and sat looking before her.