who's knocked about as much as you have, I must say you've picked up an
astonishingly small outfit of gumption. That poor creature in there is
no more drunk than I am. He's been drinking--yes, drinking like a
fish; but it wasn't able to make him drunk. He's past being drunk; he's
grief-crazy. It's a case of 'woman.' Some girl has made a fool of him,
and decoyed him up in a balloon, and let him drop. He's been hurt bad,
too."

"We have all been hurt in our day and generation," responded Brother
Soulsby, genially. "Don't you worry; he'll sleep that off too. It takes
longer than drink, and it doesn't begin to be so pleasant, but it can be
slept off. Take my word for it, he'll be a different man by noon."

When noon came, however, Brother Soulsby was on his way to summon one
of the village doctors. Toward nightfall, he went out again to telegraph
for Alice.



CHAPTER XXXII


Spring fell early upon the pleasant southern slopes of the Susquehanna
country. The snow went off as by magic. The trees budded and leaved
before their time. The birds came and set up their chorus in the elms,
while winter seemed still a thing of yesterday.

Alice, clad gravely in black, stood again upon a kitchen-stoop, and
looked across an intervening space of back-yards and fences to where the
tall boughs, fresh in their new verdure, were silhouetted against the