"M-m, my boy," he said now to Glavis. "You are certainly a fine young man, just fine, fine, fine!" He paused briefly while Glavis could swallow the flattery, and then went on: "Never in the thirty years I have been a minister of the gospel and been compelled to be away from home in God's work, has it ever been like it has since you married Ethel. I simply do not have to worry at all now; whereas, I used to have to worry all the time." Whereupon he paused again, affected a lordly sigh, and permitted Glavis to become inflated with vanity before going on.

"Now, before you married Ethel, I was a little dubious." He always said this for a purpose. "I am so well informed and understand men so well, and the ways of men, until I was hesitant to risk trusting you with my daughter's love. You will understand how it is when you have raised children with the care I have exercised in the training of my precious darlings. A man cannot be too careful, and for that reason, I was dubious regarding her marrying you. Besides, we, I think you understand, are among the best colored people of the city of Chicago, and the State of Illinois, so it behooved me to exercise discretion."

"Yes, father," Glavis swallowed. He felt then the dignity of his position as a member of such a distinguished family.

"Well," went on the other, "you know how much grief I must be enduring when I see this poor baby," pointing to Orlean, "as she is. The finest girl that ever trod the earth, and my heart always, and then to see her dragged down to this, and all this attendant gossip, grieves my old heart," whereupon big tears rolled down his dark face. All those about sighed in sympathy and were silent.

"Oh, it's a shame, a shame, my father, it is a shame!" he cried between sobs. "Oh, his immortal soul! Come in here like a thief in the night, and with his dirty tongue just deliberately stole her from her good home—her an innocent child to go out into that wilderness and sacrifice her poor soul to make him rich!" He ended with the eloquence that his years of preaching had given him. He shed more tears of mortification, and resumed:

"And my wife, her own mother, was a party to it!" He was killing two birds with one stone now. Nothing was more gratifying to him than to seize every possible opportunity to place all his failures, all his shortcomings, all his blunders, and last, but not least, all the results of his evil nature, on the shoulders of his little helpless wife. For years—aye, since he had taken her as wife, had it been so. Never had she shared even in reflected light the honors that had come to him. She did as he requested, and endeavored to please him in every way. The love he had given her was an affected love. It was not from his heart. He had given her little that was due her as his wife.