"This Dick has been gone a year, an' never a word to ya to let you know even whether he's alive or not. This ain't love, honey; he was only after my money. Now Clarence is honest an' open; why can't you take up with him, so 'at if I'd be called sudden I could go in peace. It would mean a lot to me to see you in good hands, honey. I'm afraid 'at Dick'll wait until I'm gone, an' then come snoopin' around, like a coyote sneakin' into camp when the hunters are away. Don't answer me now, child; just think it over careful. I've generally let you have your own way, but I do wish you'd give in to me this time." Was Jabez failin'--was he? Well, not so you could notice it! Course he wasn't quite so physically able as once; but I never saw him put up a toppier mental exhibition than he did right then. Barbie didn't have a word to say that afternoon until about five o'clock. Then she suddenly looked up from some reports we was goin' over, an' sez, "Happy, if you had gone away from me like Dick did, what would be the only thing what would have kept you from comin' back to me?" "By God, nothin' but death!" sez I, without stoppin' to think. The color rushed to her cheeks as if I had slapped her; an' then it oozed away, leavin' her white as chalk, while I bit my lip an' pinched myself somethin' hearty. I had wanted to compliment her I suppose, if I'd had any motive at all; but what I had done, when you come to look it square in the teeth, was to ask her to cut an ace out of a deck with nothin' left higher than a six spot. I ain't what you would call inventionative; but I could 'a' done a blame sight better'n that if I'd taken the time to think, instead o' simply blurtin' out the truth like some fool amateur. "Well," sez she, finally, "Dick was twice the man you are, so he must be--dead." We didn't say anything for some time. Vanity ain't like a mill-store about my neck; but at the same time, whenever any one plugs me in the face with an aged cabbage, I allus like to make a some little acknowledgment. Of course I knew that she was handin' me one for my fool break; but she did it in cold blood, an' if it hadn't been for her bein' so stewed up in trouble, I'd have made her furnish some specifications to back up that remark. Twice is a good many, but I let it go. She sat lost in study for a while, an' then said, mostly to herself, "I reckon I might as well take him"--my heart popped up in my mouth till I liked to have gagged, but she went on--"he's honest an' kind, an' he's been true a long time to his first love. I hope he'll stay true to her after we're married; I know I'll stay true to mine"--then I knew she meant that fool Englishman. "Anyway, father has been good to me," she continued, "an' I don't set enough store by my own life to risk spoilin' his."