"No, thank you," he said, rising as courteously as of old. "I sha'n't smoke any more to-night."
"Well, good night," she said.
"Good night," he echoed.
The flare from the lime-kilns and the brickyards lit the cliffs, hills, and sky. He beard the town clock striking ten. Little Joel had waked, and his mother was gently telling him to go to sleep. The child wanted water. Tilly went to the kitchen for it, and the father heard her sweetly cooing as she held the cup for his son to drink. What a marvel that—his son and hers.
CHAPTER XI
"John is not coming. I see that plain enough from this letter," Cavanaugh announced to his wife at noon one day, as he entered the sitting-room where she sat sewing on a machine.
"Why, what's wrong?" the old woman asked, in a tone of disappointment.
"I can't tell exactly," Cavanaugh answered. "It is all round about, with this reason and that. He seems to have a mistaken idea that it will stir up an awful rumpus in the papers. He wants to help his mother, and says for me to see her and tell her so. He is willing to make a substantial settlement on her, but she wouldn't take it. Do you hear me? She wouldn't have scraps thrown at her like that. If he came here and made it up she might let him help, but she'll never accept it that way. I am disappointed in him. After the way I wrote, he ought to have come and been done with it."
Mrs. Cavanaugh adjusted her glasses, took the letter and read it, moving her wrinkled lips as she slowly intoned the words. Then she handed it back.