I jest flung down my sewin' and went over to him, and leaned his poor head against my shoulder.

'Jim,' says I, 'I 'ain't never regretted it.' And God knows I spoke the truth, and I speak the truth when I say it now.

I 'ain't never regretted it, and I don't regret it now." Eva said the last with a look as if she were hurling defiance, then she went on in the same high, monotonous key above the ordinary key of life.

"When I says that, he jest gives a great sigh and sort of pushes me away and gets up.

'Well, I have,' says he; 'I have, and sometimes I think the best thing I can do is to take myself out of the way, instead of sittin' here day after day and seein' you wearin' your fingers to the bone to support me, and seein' my child, an' bein' ashamed to look her in the face.