squaring of old accounts! How she would turn the laugh back on them! How well she could laugh who waited to the last!

Then she shook her head. What had she to do with revenge? What meaner advantage could anybody take than to flaunt a dead enemy's colors? We can all deal sharply with our friends, but we must be magnanimous with our foes.

No, it was impossible. Josie had suffered enough in the ebb of her beauty. Debby could not strike at her in her grave.

CHAPTER IX

She waited to announce her decision till Asaph should call again. Then till Asaph should call again. Then she told him what she had decided, but not why. He suspected every other reason except the truth. He was always a quick, hard fighter, and now Deborah had to endure what Josie had endured all her life. He denounced her, threatened her, cajoled her, pleaded with her, but Josie's ghost chaperoned the two, forbade the banns, seemed to whisper, "His bad temper was what ruined my beauty."

The next day in the store Asaph looked wretched. Deborah grew the more desirable for her denial. He had thought that he had but to ask her; and now she refused his beseeching. He paused before her counter and begged her to reconsider.

He called at her home every evening. He went to her mother and implored her aid. The poor old soul could hardly believe her ears when she heard that Deborah was not only desired, but difficult. She promised Asaph that Deborah would yield, and he went away happy.

There was a weird conflict in the forsaken house that night. The old pictures nearly fell off the walls at the sight of the stupefied mother trying to compel that lifelong virgin to the altar. Mrs. Larrabee pointed out that there would never be another chance. The A.G.&St.P.Ry. was in the receiver's hands. They would starve if Deborah lost her job.

Deborah's only answer was that she would go to Crawford's. Her mother could not shake her decision, and hobbled off to bed in senile dismay. She had always been asking what the world was coming to, and now it was there. Deborah's heart was a whirlpool of indecision. Asaph's gloom appalled her, his evident need of her was his one unanswerable argument. He had given her her start in life. How could she desert his store, how could she refuse him his prayer? But how could she take Josie's place, kidnap Josie's children? Why was such a puzzle forced upon her, where every decision was 

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