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 in their one-sided discussions, that Jane Bennett's wish to carry her point was overborne by a desire to punish her son. As she gave him a second "help" of boiled potatoes, she asked, with apparent irrelevancy:

"Did you see Alice Ives that was? She was sitting in her Pa's pew, dressed up real stylish and becomin'. I thought when I saw her looking at you across the aisle that she must be glad enough that she'd had the sense to marry a man that was free with his money."

"No, I didn't see Alice," said Anson, calmly. He did not flush nor wince, nor did his voice betray any emotion. Yet a change went over his countenance, something like the change which goes over a dull landscape when the long afternoon light begins to brood.

"I'm glad Alice is so well off," he added, presently. "They say she's got two little girls as pretty as she used to be."

"She's jest as pretty as ever she was," said his mother, sharply. "I do hope to goodness," she added, "that you wont go to see her in that old overcoat. She's going away to-morrow."

"I don't know's I shall go to see her at all," he answered. "At any rate, I'm going over to East Burnham this afternoon to see Dr. Morse."

Poor Jane Bennett had got the worst of it, as she often did nowadays. Dr. Morse was her bugbear. Without ever having seen that excellent man, she had conceived an aversion to him which