"Mollie would be too lazy to spend it; or to take care of the things if she had them. Her mother spent a great deal for medicine for her rheumatism; but Mollie just bought things to eat--if she bought _anything_. She loved to sit outside the door, all sort of soft and lazy, with the wind blowing her pale red hair about her soft, white face; and a baby in her lap. I can just see her, this very minute." "I can't see," said Mr. Huntington, testily, "why your father ever married that woman." "He _didn't_," said Jeanne. "She married _him_--Barney Turcott said so. Daddy had nursed my mother through a terrible sickness--I _think_ it was typhoid, he said--and in spite of everything he could do, she died. Afterwards he was almost crazy about it--about losing her. He couldn't think of anything else. And while he was like that, _he_ had a fever and was sick for a long, long time. Before he was really well, he was married to Mollie. Barney said the Shannons took ad--adventures--no, that isn't it--" "Advantage." "Yes, that's it. Advantage of him. They thought, because his clothes were good, that he had money. But they took very good care of me at first, Barney said. But Mollie kept getting lazier and lazier, and father kept getting stronger and healthier. But the better he got, the more discouraged he was about having Mollie and all those children and not enough money. You see, he wasn't _really_ well until after they were living on the dock--Barney said the fresh air was all that saved him, and that now he's a different man. Mollie's cooking is enough to discourage anybody; but Barney says: 'By gum! He stuck by her like a man.'" "My child! You mustn't quote Barney quite so literally. Surely, he didn't say all that to _you_?" "No. Barney never talks to anybody but men, he's so bashful. He was telling another man why he liked my father. They were reeling a net." "Where were you?" "Behind them, peeling potatoes. I didn't know _then_ that it wasn't polite to listen." "You poor little savage." "I don't mind," assured Jeanne, "when _you_ call me a savage; but when Harold does, I _feel_ like one." Jeanne had been warned never to mention her mother in her grandfather's presence; and she had meant not to. But by this time, you have surely guessed that Jeanne, with no one else to whom she could talk freely, was apt to unbottle herself, as it were, whenever she found her grandfather in a listening mood. She was naturally a good deal of a chatterbox; but, like many another little chatterbox, preferred a sympathetic listener. Sometimes, as just now, she spoke of her mother without remembering that she was a forbidden subject. But now, some of the questions that she had been longing to ask, thronged to her lips. Her grandfather was so very gentle with her--Oh, if she only dared! "What _are_ you thinking about?" asked Mr. Huntington, after a long silence. "That is a very valuable picture and you are looking a hole right through it."