Lois, left alone now, with Dosia up-stairs, felt herself relapsing into the dark mood she dreaded, when there came the welcome sound of the door-bell. A moment later the maid took up a card to Dosia on which was inscribed the name of Mr. Angevin L. Cater. He was scrupulously attired in an old “dress suit,” the conventional lines of which, with the stiff expanse of shirt-front, seemed to make his yellow angularity of feature still more pronounced. He looked so oddly out of place in the little drawing-room, where he sat talking to Lois, his long limbs tucked back as far as possible under the small spindle-legged sofa, and one arm stretched out embracingly over the green cushions at his side, and yet he looked so oddly natural and homelike, too, that Dosia felt a swift pleasure in his presence. At her entrance, he disentangled himself from the sofa and stood up to take the two hands which she had extended to him before she knew it, regarding her the while with admiring earnestness. “Well, you are all right,” he said, after the first greetings; “Miss Dosia, you certainly are all right. If I was back in the South I’d say just what I thought of you, but I’m afraid to up here; folks are too careful about complimentin’ for me. When I see a young lady like you,—or like Mrs. Alexander, here,—” he rose and bowed gallantly, “I want to get straight up and tell you just how handsome you look. There’s nothing so beautiful on God’s earth to me as a beautiful woman—unless it’s a mother. A mother doesn’t need to have a complexion if she’s got the mother spirit shinin’ out of her. I had a mother once—a better never lived. She’s dead.” “That is very sad,” said Lois, in the pause that followed this announcement, keeping back an almost irresistible smile. Both she and Dosia felt the relief of light and impersonal conversation after painful communing. “Yes, ma’am,” said the visitor, sitting, as before, with his long legs back under the little sofa and one long arm embracing the top of it. “How is your wife?” asked Dosia. “Have you seen her lately?” “I was home for a week around Christmas-time,” answered Mr. Cater. “It’s sort of unsettling, though, to go home for a short period—at least, I find it so. I don’t know _as_ it pays, except as something to look forward to before you’ve done it; there’s a good deal in that. My wife lives with her family; they have a right smart amount of trouble, and it seems like it always saves up for a real spell when I get home.” “I should think she would want to stay here with you,” said Dosia. Mr. Cater cleared his throat apologetically. “Well, the fact is,” he conceded, “my wife’s powerful fond of her family. There’s nothing against a woman being fond of her family.” “Oh, no,” said Lois.