"What can be worse than a half-orphan?" inquired the Lady Bountiful, all interest in the increasing scale of misfortune open to human nature.
"A whole orphan!" exclaimed the old gentleman. "It isn't going to make any difference to you, is it, my being a whole orphan?"
"No," she said, slowly. "But I wonder if our being a whole and a half orphan excuses us any. I know when I don't have buttons on, and things like that—don't you?"
"There are times when I'm aware of my frailty." And there was a twinkle in his eye that made the Lady Bountiful feel akin to him as one not above the weaknesses of human nature; yet this sentiment she did not feel it well to encourage.
"'A knowledge of the fault is the first step toward improvement.' It says that in a book I have—it's called Daily Draughts for Dusty Highways—a friend of mine gave it to me; his name is Eddy Dudley. He received it at his Sunday-school."
"Perhaps you'd let me take a note of—what is it?—'A knowledge—'"
She interrupted him impulsively. "I'll lend you the book. But I must go back now; they'll be wanting me for supper. I wish you could come; but it's only health food out of a box. I've forgotten what it is this week—last week it had such a nice name and such a nasty taste. They change it to see if it will fatten me, but it never does. The doctor says I am nervous, and have an active mind."
"Don't mind about not being able to ask me," the old gentleman reassured her. "It wouldn't agree with me, at all. My doctor makes out such a different case for me."
"Now mind you get something wholesome," she charged him, as she slipped three pennies into his hand. "Don't buy pickles or chewing-gum."
"Uncle Dan'l" was still holding the pennies when he reached the grim brownstone house, exactly like all its grim brownstone neighbors on the block, and he shifted the little coins carefully, almost tenderly, as he adjusted his latch-key. His secretary was certain that he had arranged things for a great panic. His mood was almost hilarious. He whistled a thin dry tune as he unlocked the small safe in his study, and to his secretary's "Can I help you, sir?" he answered, almost pettishly, that he could manage perfectly well. And the secretary, divining that "the old sinner was up to something," gave a fictitious interest to some papers on the desk. In the mean time "Uncle Dan'l" put the pennies in a little white envelope, scribbled something on it that no one would have believed him capable of writing, and put it in a secret compartment that contained no shred of paper relating in any way to finance.
He had so confidently expected that she would be waiting for him, as she had promised at their last meeting, as to be quite unprepared for the disappointment that her absence caused him. He walked to the end of the block and back several times, expecting every moment she would appear, and, finally, he turned into Fifth Avenue, thinking that his little friend must have forgotten him.
How could he know that at that very moment she was marking passages in the Daily Draughts, and that she was confined to the house with the worst possible of colds—more dreadful yet, threatened with the measles. Neither did she appear on the next day; but on the day after she came, bearing the marked copy of the Daily Draughts— her late indisposition signified by a rather cumbrous plaid muffler.
"It was almost measles!" she said, dramatically. "Did you ever have any?"
"God bless my soul!" exclaimed "Uncle Dan'l," "I've clean forgotten. What are they like?"
"Your nose feels like your foot when it's gone to sleep, and they let you have all the hot lemonade you want. But I didn't really have 'em. Here's Daily Draughts all marked for you."
"Let's see," he said, opening it. "'Happiness does not depend on riches.' It seems to me I've heard something like that before."
She looked literary for a moment. "Eddy told me the book was very well known. He received it for a Sunday-school present."
"'Habits of truthfulness soon become second nature.' Oh Lord—"
"I'll lend you the Vy-ker of Wakefield when you've finished this. I'm reading it
