"Well of all gol-durned nonsense!" Jock blurted out. "The whole blamed show oughter been exposed. I reckon the best job the company ever had to its credit was that happening of yours--the dress and the--the--rest of the picter. Lord!" Jock's feelings were running over as he looked upon the bowed head. The story had got hold of his tender heart. "Lord above! Just think of that sort of rum suffering going on back there. It's worse than what happens here. We've got wood to keep the kids warm in winter, and there's clean air and coolness in summer. I'm durned glad I cut it when"--he stopped short. Constance was looking at him with wide, questioning eyes. "When I did," Jock added helplessly. "And now go on with that poor little child what you took to your bosom." "That's all." Constance choked painfully. "The baby--died while I was telling her about the wonderful tree, and Santa Claus and the other joys she should have had, and never did have. I can see that hideous empty room, and--and that poor baby every time I shut my eyes." "Here, look up now," Jock commanded, his feelings getting the best of him. "When life's so empty that you can't find things to do by opening your eyes, you better keep your eyes shut to all eternity. Calling up the past is the rottenest kind of folly in a world where things is happening." Constance rallied to the stern call. "And now," she said briskly, "I've given myself, heart and soul to--literature. I'll _write_ of what I have seen, and lived! "Listen, I'll read you a sketch or so. But first I'll explain. The local colour of my novel is drawn from--here." Jock pulled himself together. "Well, I'll be blowed!" he sympathetically ejaculated, "Here where there ain't, what you might say, enough local color to more than touch up the noses of the Black Catters." "Jock! Now, see if you'd know it." She read a scrappy description of the village. "Would you recognize it?" "With a footnote, it would go." Jock was all attention. "But I have my doubts as to whether Pete Falstar will take kindly to his place of residence being classified as a human pig-sty. That's laying the local colour on, with a whitewash brush, don't you think? A little dirt and disorder don't seem to call for such language." "That is artistic license." Constance explained. "Well, you ought to pay high for that kind of license--but maybe you do. Go on." "I handle my subject without gloves," Constance began again. "By gosh! I'd keep 'em on when I was tackling pig-stys and such; but don't mind me." "And here; see if you can guess who this is? "'The sleek, fat proprietor looked oily within and oily without. He oozed oil on the community that he was demoralizing with his poisonous whiskey and doctored beer.'"