to stick at steady employment, but was always chasing rainbows and
depending upon his sister for a home and means of existence. When
the Klondike gold fever struck the country he was one of the first to
succumb to the disease. And, after an argument--violent on his part
and determined on Thankful's--he had left South Middleboro and
gone--somewhere. From that somewhere he had never returned.

"Yes," mused Mrs. Barnes, "those were the last words he said to me."

"What did you say to him?" asked Emily, drowsily. She had heard the
story often enough, but she asked the question as an aid to keeping
awake.

"Hey? What did I say? Oh, I said my part, I guess. 'When you come back,'
says I, 'it'll be when I send money to you to pay your fare home, and I
shan't do it. I've sewed and washed and cooked for you ever since Eben
died, to say nothin' of goin' out nursin' and housekeepin' to earn money
to buy somethin' TO cook. Now I'm through. This is my house--or, at
any rate, I pay the rent for it. If you leave it to go gold-diggin' you
needn't come back to it. If you do you won't be let in.' Of course I
never thought he'd go, but he did. Ah hum! I'm afraid I didn't do
right. I ought to have realized that he wa'n't really accountable, poor,
weak-headed critter!"

Emily's eyes were fast shutting, but she made one more remark.

"Your life has been a hard one, hasn't it, Auntie," she said.

Thankful protested. "Oh, no, no!" she declared. "No harder'n anybody
else's, I guess likely. This world has more hards than softs for the