“You want to send her to college and you thought you would come over and let me give her a little motherly counsel while you borrowed the money of Tom Adams to pay her college bills.  Is that what’s happened?”

“Just about that, Sally.  Adams is all right; he has to protect the bank.”

“Adams is a doddering imbecile.  How much did you ask him for?”

“Five thousand dollars.  I offered to put up my life insurance policy for that amount and some stock I own.  He said money was tight just now and they’d want a good name on the paper besides the collateral, and that I’d better try my home bank.  I didn’t do that, of course, because Montgomery is a small town and—­well, I’d rather not advertise my affairs to a whole community.  I’m not a business man and these things all seem terribly complicated and embarrassing to me.”

“But you tried other places besides Adams?  I saw it in your eye when you came home this evening that you had struck a snag.  Well, well!  So money is tight, is it?  I must speak to Tom Adams about that.  He told me yesterday they had more money than they could lend and that the banks were cutting down their dividends.  He’s no banker; he ought to be in the old-clothes business.”

“I can’t blame him.  I suppose my not being in business, and not living here, makes a difference.”

“Rubbish!  But you ought to have come to me.  You spoke of stock; what’s that in?”

“Shares in the White River Canneries.  I put all I had in that company.  Everybody seemed to make money in the canning business and I thought it would be a good investment.  It promised well in the prospectus.”

“It always does, Andrew,” replied the old lady dryly.  “Let me see, Morton Bassett was in that.”

“I believe so.  He was one of the organizers.”

“Um.”

“Adams told me to-day there had been a reorganization and that my shares were valueless.”

“Well, well.  So you were one of the suckers that put money into that canning scheme.  You can charge it off, Andrew.  Let’s drop the money question for a minute, I want to talk about the little girl.”

“Yes I’m anxious to know what you think of her”

“Well, she’s a Kelton; it’s in the eyes; but there’s a good deal of her Grandmother Evans in her, too.  Let me see,—­your wife was one of those Posey County Evanses?  I remember perfectly.  The old original Evans came to this country with Robert Owen and started in with the New Harmony community down there.  There was a streak o’ genius in that whole set.  But about Sylvia.  I don’t think I ever saw Sylvia’s mother after she was Sylvia’s age.”

“I don’t think you did.  She was away at school a good many years.  Sylvia is the picture of her mother.  It’s a striking likeness; but their natures are wholly different.”

He was very grave, and the despondency that he had begun to throw off settled upon him again.