"I _didn't_ have the heart," Briggs shouted. "But I had the courage, and if you say one word more, Blakeley, I'll throw you out of the room. I'm going to leave! _My_ board's paid if yours isn't." He went wildly about, catching things down here and there from nails and out of drawers. The tears stood in his eyes. But suddenly he stopped and listened to the sounds from below--the sound of the silly singing in the parlor, and the sound of sobbing in the dining-room, and the sound of vain entreating between the sobs. "Oh, I don't suppose I'm fit to keep a boarding-house. I never was a good manager; and everybody imposes on me, and everything is so dear, and I don't know what's good from what's bad. Your poor father used to look after all that." "Well, don't you cry, now, mother! It'll all come right, you'll see. I'm getting so I can go and do the marketing now; and if Minervy would only help a little--" "No, no!" the mother's voice came anxiously up. "We can get along without her; we always have. I know he likes her, and I want to give her every chance. _We_ can get along. If she was on'y married, once, we could all live--" A note of self-comforting gradually stole into the mother's voice, and the sound of a nose violently blown seemed to note a period in her suffering. "Oh, mother, I wish I was well!" The girl's voice came with a burst of wild lamenting. "'Sh, 'sh, deary!" her mother entreated. "He'll _hear_ you, and then--" "'Hazel Dell'?" the silly voice came from the parlor, with a sound of fright in it. "I can sing it without the music." The piano keys twittered the prelude and the voice sang: "In the Hazel Dell my Nelly's sleeping, Nelly loved so long!" Wallace went forward and shut the door. "It's a shame to overhear them! What are you going to do, you fellows?" "I'm going to stay," Briggs said, "if it kills me. At least I will till Minervy's married. _I_ don't care what the grub's like. I can always get a bite at the restaurant." "If anybody will pay up my back board, I'll stay, too," Blakeley followed. "I should like to make a virtue of it, and, as things stand, I can't." "All right," Wallace said, and he went out and down the stairs. Then from the dining-room below his heavy voice offering encouragement came up, in terms which the others could not make out. "I'll bet he's making her another advance," Blakeley whispered, as if he might be overheard by Wallace. "I wish _I_ could have made to do it," Briggs whispered back. "I feel as mean as pursley. Would you like to kick me?" "I don't see how that would do any good. I may want to borrow money of you, and you can't ask a loan from a man you've kicked. Besides, I think what you said may do her good." IX BREAKFAST IS MY BEST MEAL I