Phineas Look’s reading of his own “heart-docket” the day before had not inclined him over-much to amiability toward this particular variety of ingrate. His tone was peremptory and he scowled. “I can’t earn no kind of a livin’,” Mayo stammered. “And you probably never will so long as you stay a chambermaid in a livery stable. Great God, is that the limit of your ambition or your enterprise? A man with a wife he loves, with two strong hands and a will to get-there-Eli, to come sniveling like this! Hunt your work! Buckle to it! That’s what will make something better of you, boy, than Mayo’s housedog.” The taunt was wasted, for the youth persisted in his stubborn lament. “She says now she wouldn’t have married me if she didn’t think we’d be taken care of better.” “What kind of cussed notions did you put in her head?” the lawyer stormed. “If you lied to her, Watson, it’s up to you to square yourself now by making good. Do so well by her that she’ll love you and respect you for yourself. Don’t make me sorry that I cut your dog-leash before your parents plumb ruined you.” Young Mayo cast a furtive look at the two old men, and leaning over the table murmured, his lips trembling: “I tell you, Squire, she scares me. She says it has come to her in a vision that she has a mother--a lady mother, somewhere, all in silks and satins, and she’s seen her in a vision with her diamond thing on her head. And most ev’ry night she wakes and sits up in bed and reaches up her arms and says her lady mother just asked her to come, Squire Phin, and she’s a-goin’. Yes, s’r, she’s a-goin’ some time and I’m scared and I ain’t got no ambition and I can’t buy her no good clothes, and I sold my watch and scarfpin to give her money. My Gawd, Squire, she’s a-goin’ and I can’t live without her, nohow.” Perspiration streamed down his quivering face and his lips “guffled” tremulously. All the smugness and self-satisfaction were gone now, and for the first time the lawyer saw the Mayo boy in all his wretched, discouraging inefficiency. With a pang of self-reproach he reflected that some natures cannot stand stiff doses--and his remedy for making over a man had certainly been a heroic one. As he pondered, he fell into his characteristic attitude, hands clutched into the long locks of his gray hair, his elbows on the table. He gazed into the pathos of that quivering face and studied it as he would the page of an open book. The little office was very still.