commissioner, with the deferential manner he always used toward the fair sex.
“I hardly know,” said the lady, hesitatingly. “I suppose so.” And then, suddenly drawn by the sympathetic look of the other, she poured forth the story of her need.
It was a story so common that the public has come to look at its monotony instead of its pity. The old tale of an unhappy married life—made so by a brutal, conscienceless husband, a robber, a spendthrift, a moral coward and a bully, who failed to provide even the means of the barest existence. Yes, he had come down in the scale so low as to strike her. It happened only the day before—there was the bruise on one temple—she had offended his highness by asking for a little money to live on. And yet she must needs, woman-like, append a plea for her tyrant—he was drinking; he had rarely abused her thus when sober.
“I thought,” mourned this pale sister of sorrow “that maybe the state might be willing to give me some relief. I’ve heard of such things being done for the families of old settlers. I’ve heard tell that the state used to give land to the men who fought for it against Mexico, and settled up the country, and helped drive out the Indians. My father did all of that, and he never received anything. He never would take it. I thought the governor would be the one to see, and that’s why I came. If father was entitled to anything, they might let it come to me.”
“It’s possible, ma’am,” said Standifer, “that such
