from what you did when I first saw you. You've been growing younger every
day."

Her face flushed like a girl's under his direct, admiring gaze, making her all
the more pretty. She hastened to divert direct attention from herself by
asking, "You haven't heard from anyone this morning?"

"No, but I guess the doctor has. Some of those fellows will have to keep
shady for a while."

As they were finishing breakfast, Holcroft looked out of the open kitchen door
and exclaimed, "By thunder! We're going to hear from some of them now. Here
comes Mrs. Weeks, the mother of the fellow who hit me."

"Won't you please receive her in the parlor?"

"Yes, she won't stay long, you may be sure. I'm going to give that Weeks
tribe one lesson and pay off the whole score."

He merely bowed coldly to Mrs. Weeks' salutation and offered her a chair. The
poor woman took out her handkerchief and began to mop her eyes, but Holcroft
was steeled against her, not so much on account of the wound inflicted by her
son as for the reason that he saw in her an accomplice with her husband in the
fraud of Mrs. Mumpson.

"I hope you're not badly hurt," she began.

"It might be worse."

"Oh, Mr. Holcroft!" she broke out sobbingly, "spare my son. It would kill me