years ago and the Douglases never liked to put up with second best."
"Who was the woman he did want"
"Ellen West. They weren't engaged exactly, I believe, but they went about together for two years. And then they just broke off nobody ever knew why. Just some silly quarrel, I suppose. And Norman went and married Hester Reese before his temper had time to cool—married her just to spite Ellen, I haven't a doubt. So like a man! Hester was a nice little thing, but she never had much spirit and he broke what little she had. She was too meek for Norman. He needed a woman who could stand up to him. Ellen would have kept him in fine order and he would have liked her all the better for it. He despised Hester, that is the truth, just because she always gave in to him. I used to hear him say many a time, long ago when he was a young fellow, 'Give me a spunky woman—spunk for me every time.' And then he went and married a girl who couldn't say bo to a goose—man-like. That family of Reeses were just vegetables. They went through the motions of living, but they didn't live."
"Russell Reese used his first wife's wedding ring to marry his second," said Susan reminiscently. "That was too economical in my opinion, Mrs. Dr. dear. And his brother John has his own tombstone put up in the over-harbour graveyard, with everything on it but the date of death, and he goes and looks at it every Sun-
