THE COST—WHO PAYS
mother to-night! I never knew her, did I, daddy?"
"No," says I, choking up. "But Jon did."
"Yet I know, too, what she was—I know all about her to-night for the first time. Now, isn't that queer? And I'm glad. There are only a few women of whom we can say that, daddy, dear. Well, it's hard, but good-by!"
He had reached the stairs, and standing on them, flung me a kiss, like girls do to each other, half gay, half sad. He looked sorrowfully down at me a long time, then flung another. I can see him now as I close my old eyes! Handsome as young David in the Bible, with things written in his face I had never seen there before. And a strange thought came into my head—for no especial reason—for, I have admitted my dullness—Evelyn. He had said to her that day he came home, that she might teach him what sorrow was. I wondered if it was beginning now. Whether she was concerned in my son's strange mood.
"Davy," I says, as pleading as I could, just
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