Bertha eyed her mother closely--with cool, bright, accusing eyes--for a moment, then she softened. "Poor old mammy, it's pretty tough lines on you--no two ways about that. You've got the heavy end of the job. I'd marry most anybody to give you a rest--but, mother, Captain Haney is forty, if he's a day, and he's a hard citizen. He has been a gambler all his life. You can't expect me to marry a sport like him. And then there's Ed." The mother's face changed. "A barber!" she exclaimed, scornfully. "Yes, he's a barber now, but he's going to make a break soon and get into something else." "Don't bank on Ed, Bertie; he'll never be anything more than he is now. No man ever got anywhere who started in as a barber." "Would you rather I married a gambler and a sure-shot? They tell me Haney has killed his man." "That may be all talk. Well, anyhow, he wants to see you and talk it over; and oh, Bertie, it does seem a wonderful chance--and my heart's so bad to-day it seems as though I couldn't see to another meal! I don't want you to marry him if you don't want to--I'm not asking you to. You know I'm not. But he is a noble-looking man--and I get awfully discouraged sometimes. It scares me to think of dying and leaving you without any security." One of the waiters, half-dead with curiosity, was edging near, under pretense of brushing the table, and so the mistress rose and took up the burdens of her stewardship. "But we'll talk it over to-night. Don't be hasty." "I won't," replied the girl. She was by no means as unmoved as she gave out. She had always admired and liked Captain Haney, though he never moved her in the same way that the young barber did (for Ed Winchell had youth as well as comeliness, and there is a divine suppleness in youth), yet he had been a welcome guest. "A hundred thousand dollars a year! And yet he's been coming to our little hotel for a year--to see me!" This consideration was the one that moved her most. All the bland words, the jocular phrases of his singular wooing came back to her now, weighted with deep significance. She had called it "joshing," and had put it all aside, just as she had parried the rude jests of the brakemen of her acquaintance. Now she saw that he had been in earnest. She was wise beyond her years, this calm-faced, keen-eyed girl, trained by adversity to take care of herself. She knew instinctively that she lived surrounded by wolves, and, much as she admired the big frame and bold profile of Captain Haney, she had placed him among her enemies. His coming always pleased her but at the same time put her upon the defensive. Strange to say, she enjoyed her position there in her battered little hotel. "If it weren't for poor old mother--" She arrested herself and went back to the counter with a certain timidity, a self-consciousness new to her, fearing to face the gambler now that she knew his intent was honorable.