When supper was over, Tilly washed the dishes and Eperson put the children to bed, removing their moist clothing, bathing their bare, dusty feet and legs, and putting on their nightgowns. What a holy service of resignation it was to-night! Why was he so depressed with a sense of his vast paternal unworthiness? Why, unless he was thinking of John Trott's success? He told himself that his whole life had been a failure. Many of his personal debts were unpaid and unpayable. There were men he dreaded meeting because they always asked for the money due them, or showed by their faces that they were thinking of his delinquency. And there were others harder to meet who showed by their faces and the matters they spoke about that they had no thought of ever being paid. Ah! then there were still other men--men from whom he could not bring himself to borrow. They were the few, like Cavanaugh, who wanted to help him, but did not know how to broach so delicate a subject with so sensitive a man. The children tucked away in the general sleeping-room, Eperson went outside to the chairs that stood by the door-step and sat waiting for Tilly. Would she come to him as promptly as usual? he wondered, his stare on the blinking stars beyond the hilltops. Perhaps not so readily, for an ineffable veil seemed to have been lowered between him and her since her talk with the neighbors in regard to her first husband's survival. He listened for the clatter of dishes and pans in the kitchen. It had ceased. That work was over. Now, nothing would detain her, he told himself, and he tried to brace his courage for the performance before him. But she did not come at once. He heard her voice, with its indescribable gurgle of maternal sweetness, teaching the children to say their prayers. "God bless mother," was repeated after her, "God bless father--God bless Grandmother Trott, and all the good people in the world. Amen." "_Grandmother Trott!_" Joel's whole weary being throbbed with the mental utterance of the words. Then he heard Tilly singing a quaint lullaby sung by the negroes. He wondered if she were purposely delaying her usual after-supper chat with him. After all, what was there to tell her? She had evidently heard the main facts of the matter--that was plain from that irrepressible elation of hers. She extinguished the light and came out to him, taking the chair he stood holding for her. The starlight gleamed on his bare brow. It was like a well-wrought piece of granite. He brushed his hair back with an unsteady hand as he sat down. "I was talking with Cavanaugh," he began, and paused to clear the huskiness from his throat. "I know," Tilly said. "I've heard everything." "You have?" Joel said, tremulously.