The Doctor's face flinched with pain, and his treble voice winced as he spoke: "Lord, but he suffered, and to add to his physical torment, he knew that he had to leave his daughter all alone in the world--and without a mother and without a dollar; but that isn't the worst, and he knew it--at the last. This being twenty-five for a living is the hardest job on earth--when you're sixty, and the old man knew that. The girl has missed his blood taint; she's not scarred nor disfigured. It would be better if she were; but he gave her something worse--she's his child!" For a moment the Doctor was silent, then he sighed deeply and shut his eyes as he said: "Boys, for a year and more he's been seeing all that he was, bud like a glorious poison in his daughter." Van Dorn smiled, and asked casually, "Well, what's her name?" The rest of the group in the store looked down their noses and the Doctor, with his paper under his arm, obviously ignored the question and only stopped in the door to pipe out: "This wasn't the morning to talk to me of the ladies--God bless 'em." The men in the store watched him as he started across the street, and then saw Laura skip gayly toward him, and the two, holding hands, crossed the muddy street together. She was laughing, and the joy of her soul--a child's soul, shone like a white flame in the dull street and George Brotherton, who saw the pair in the street, roared out: "Well, say--now isn't that something worth looking at? That beats Niagara Falls and Pike's Peak--for me." Captain Morton looked at the gay pair attentively for a moment and spoke: "And I have three to his one; I tell you, gentlemen--three to his one; and I guess I haven't told you gentlemen about it, but I got the exclusive agency for seven counties for Golden's Patent Self-Opening Fruit Can, an absolute necessity for every household, and in another year my three will be wearing their silks and diamonds!" He smiled proudly around the group and added: "My! that doesn't make any difference. Silk or gingham, I know I've got the best girls on earth--why, if their mother could just see 'em--see how they're unfolding--why, Emma can make every bit as good hash as her mother," a hint of tears stood in his blue eyes. "Why--men, I tell you sometimes I want to die and go right off to Heaven to tell mother all the fine news about 'em--eh?" Deaf John Kollander, with his hand to his less affected ear, nodded approval and said, "That's what I always said, James G. Blaine never was a true friend of the soldier!" Van Dorn had been looking intently at nothing through the store window. When no one answered Captain Morton, Van Dorn addressed the house rather impersonally: