THE HAND OF DOUGLAS
"Hurry, Mary Lee, it is nearly train time!" called Mrs. Marker, where she sat in a dingy little dining-room, pouring out a cup of coffee in nervous haste for her daughter's early breakfast. The brand-new hand-satchel on the lounge, packed for its first journey, was the only thing in the room undimmed by service. Even at this early hour the house felt hot and stuffy, for the August sun was fast warming the great Southern city to a heat that would be intolerable by noon.
"I wish you were going with Mary Lee, Henry," said Mrs. Marker, looking across the table at her husband as he seated himself. "You need the rest."
There was a weary stoop in the man's shoulders that told of years spent over a bookkeeper's desk, and his face was pale and worn. "Don't say that in Mary Lee's hearing," he answered. "It is the child's first real outing, and I would not have her pleasure marred by a single thought of my work or ill health."
It was the greatest disappointment of Henry Marker's life that he had not been able to give his daughter all that other fathers gave theirs. Both he and his wife had been gently reared, and it was through no fault of his that their property had been swept away just as he was launching into his profession. A place at a bookkeeper's desk had been the first thing that he had been able to obtain.