"No; it's papa that runned away," gasped the little one, in a frightened voice. "He ran away to a saloon."
"Oh, said Dave, straightening up and feeling embarrassed as he caught the humiliated look in the young woman's face.
"Pa—-runned away and made mama cry," the little one babbled on, half sobbing. "I must go after him and bring him home."
"Be quiet, Mollie," commanded her mother.
"Papa comes, if he knows you want him," insisted the child. "I tell him you want him—-that you cry because he went to saloon."
For an instant the mother caught her breath. Then she began to cry bitterly. Dick and his friends wished themselves almost anywhere else.
"It's too bad when the children get old enough to realize it," said the woman, brokenly. Then, of a sudden, she eyed Dick and his chums bravely.
"Boys," she said, "I hope the time will never come when you'll feel that it's manly to go out with the crowd and spend the evening in drinking."
"The way we feel about it now," spoke Dick, sympathetically, "we'd rather be dead than facing any degradation of the sort."
They were only boys, and they were strangers to the woman. Moreover, little Mollie was looking pleadingly towards Dick, as if loath to let him go. In her misery the young wife poured out her story to her sympathetic listeners. Her husband had been a fine young fellow—-was still young. His drinking had begun only three months before.