"Wall, you didn't miss much, or you either, ma'am," she rejoined politely; "she was the kind that makes an honest woman ashamed to belong to a sex that's got to thrive through foolishness, an' to git to a place by sidlin' backwards. That wa'nt yo' ma's way, Benjy, an' I've often said that I don't believe she ever hung back in her life an' waited for a man to hand her what she could walk right up an' take holt of without his help. 'The woman that waits on a man has got a long wait ahead of her,' was what she used to say." Rising to her feet, she stood with the empty plate in her hand, and her back ceremoniously bent in a parting bow. "Is that yo' youngest? Now, ain't he a fine baby!" she burst out, as little Benjamin appeared, crowing, in the arms of Aunt Euphronasia, "an he's got all the soft, pleasant look of yo' po' pa a'ready." I opened the door, and with a last effusive good-by, she passed out in her stiff, rustling black, which looked as if she had gone into perpetual mourning. "Will you have some syllabub, Ben?" enquired Sally primly, as the door closed. "Sally, how will you stand it?" "She wants to be kind--she really wants to be." Crossing moodily to the table, I pushed aside the waffles, the muffins, and the syllabub, with an angry gesture. "It is what I came from, after all. It is my class." "Your class?" she repeated, laughing and sobbing together with her arms on my shoulders. "There's nobody else in the whole world in your class, Ben." CHAPTER XXVIII IN WHICH SALLY STOOPS A week or two later the General stopped me as I was leaving his office. "I don't like the look of you, Ben. What's the matter?" "My head has been troubling me, General. It's been splitting for a week, and I can't see straight." "You've thought too much, that's the mischief. Why not cut the whole thing and go West with me to-morrow in my car? I'll be gone for a month." "It's out of the question. A man who is over head and ears in debt oughtn't to be spinning about the country in a private car." "I don't see the logic of that as long as it's somebody else's car." "You'd see it if you had two hundred thousand dollars of debt." "Well, I've been worse off. I've had two hundred thousand devils of gout. Here, come along with me. Bring Sally, bring the youngster. I'll take the whole bunch of 'em."