Come, Amabel." Eva and Amabel went away, the child rolling eyes of terror and interrogation at them, Eva impervious to all her sister's pleading.
When Andrew heard what had happened, and Fanny repeated what Eva had said, his blame for Jim Tenny was unqualified.

"I've had a hard time enough, knocked about from pillar to post, and I know what she means when she talks about a checker-board.

God knows I feel myself sometimes as if I wasn't anything but a checker-piece instead of a man," he said, "but it's all nonsense blamin' the shoe-manufacturers for his runnin' away with that woman.

A man has got to use what little freedom he's got right.

It ain't any excuse for Jim Tenny that he's been out of work and got discouraged.