It don't seem jest the thing for a woman to shell out money to a man.

My nater goes agin it.

I feel it all over me, an' I vow, I b'lieve that if the little woman had did that thing to me, I sh'd rub out my reckonin' an' start new." "It's all right, though, Jim," responded Benedict, good-naturedly--"right for the woman to give it, and right for me to receive it.

Don't trouble yourself at all about it." Benedict's assurance did little to relieve Jim's bewilderment, who still thought it a very improper thing to receive money from a woman.

He did not examine himself far enough to learn that Benedict's independence of his own care and provision was partly the cause of his pain.