"Bless you, brother!" she said. "I've heard all about your glorious victory. I could hardly wait to come over an' tell you how glad I am. I'd 'a' come with Nels, but I wasn't ready an' he had to hurry here to be ready to look after the furniture when it come. I'm so glad! But things had to come out that way. The Lord never lets sin prevail!--praise His name!" "Won't you sit down, Mrs. Petersen?" Tom said, in some embarrassment, relinquishing the slight hand she had given him. "I can't stop a minute, we're so busy. You must come up an' see us. I pray God'll prosper you in your new work, an' make you a power for right. Good-by." As she passed through the dining-room Tom heard her thin vibrant voice sound out again: "You ought to be the proudest an' happiest woman in America, Mrs. Keating." There was no answer, and Tom heard the door close. In a few minutes Maggie came in and stood leaning against the back of one of the chairs. "Tom," she said; and her voice was forced and unnatural. Tom knew that the scene he had been expecting so long was now at hand. "Yes," he answered, in a kind of triumphant dread. She did not speak at once, but stood looking down on him, her throat pulsing, her face puckered in its effort to be immobile. "Well, it was about time something of this sort was happening. You know what I've had to put up with in the last five months. I suppose you think I ought to beg your pardon. But you know what I said, I said because I thought it was to our interest to do that. And you know if we'd done what I said we'd never have seen the hard times we have." "I suppose not," Tom admitted, with a dull sinking of his heart. She stood looking down on him for a moment longer, then turned abruptly about and went into the kitchen. These five sentences were her only verbal acknowledgment that she had been wrong, and her only verbal apology. She felt much more than this--grudgingly, she was proud that he had succeeded, she was proud that others praised him, she was pleased at the prospect of better times--but more than this she could not bend to admit. While Tom lay on the couch reasoning himself into a fuller and fuller understanding of Mr. Baxter's part in last night's events, out in the kitchen Maggie's resentment over having been proved wrong was slowly disappearing under the genial influence of thoughts of the better days ahead. Her mind ran with eagerness over the many things that could be done with the thirty-five dollars a week Tom would get as walking delegate--new dresses, better than she had ever had before; new things for the house; a better table. And she thought of the social elevation Tom's new importance in the union would give her. She forgot her bitterness. She became satisfied; then exultant; then, unconsciously, she began humming.