Everything was shining clean, and both windows were full of plants, many of them in flower. Mrs. Briggs was fully persuaded in her own mind that no other woman in the city had such a tale of daily mercies as herself. Among them were the southern exposure of those windows and the circumstance that a gap in the buildings back of them let in the sunshine freely. Her nasturtiums blossomed there all winter; from a pot she had suspended by strings from the top of the casing, sweet alysseum flowed downward like a fountain of soft green waters tipped with white; scarlet geraniums shot up rank shoots that had to be pruned into reasonableness, and as to Christmas roses--"But there!" the worthy soul would assure her acquaintances, "_they_ do beat everything!" This winter the calla was about to bloom. A kind lady had given the bulb to Mrs. Briggs's son, and there was no telling the store he set by it. Topliffe Briggs--alias, Top, Senior--was an engineer on the great North, East, West and South Railway. He sat at the tea-table with his wife and son at five-thirty one cloudy February afternoon. His next train went out at six-forty-five. He had run "Her" into the station at four, and his house was but two blocks away. Mrs. Briggs could see from those unparalleled kitchen-windows the bridge by which the track crossed the river separating the town from the marshes, and could calculate to a minute when the familiar step would be heard on the stairs. "You see we live by railroad time," was her modest boast. "And my husband always comes straight home." She did not emphasize the "my," knowing in her compassionate heart what other husbands were prone to lag by the way until they came home late and crookedly. Top, Senior, was on time to-day. "I ken trust Her with Bartlett, you see," he remarked to his wife. "He won't leave tel she's all trig an' tidy for the next trip. I wisht I could be as sure o' Stokes!" Mrs. Briggs looked up inquiringly. "Stokes is a clever fellow," pursued Top Senior regretfully, slicing vigorously into the cold corned beef, for he was hungry. "Smart as a steel trap, and onderstan's his business. I never see a fireman what hed a better chance o' risin' to an ingineer. He knows Her pretty nigh's well ez I do. I've took real comfort in learning him all I could. But I'm afeerd, sometimes, he's on a down-grade and the brakes don't work." "You mean that he drinks, don't you, father?" asked the sharp-eyed boy at his elbow. "_There_, father!" interjected the mother. "You might 'a' known he'd onderstan', no matter how you put it!" "I ain't afeered o' my boy blabbin'!" The brawny hand stroked the thin light hair of his only child. "An' I want he should learn to hate the stuff. It's the devil's best drivin' wheel--liquor is. I'd ruther lay you with my own han's 'cross the rails this very night, an' drive Her right over you, than to know that you'd grow up a drunkard. Never do you forget them words, Junior! I _mean_ every one o' them!"