For a time Henry sat looking hard in Witherspoon's blood-shot eyes; and a thought, hot and anger-edged, strove for utterance, but an appealing gesture, a look from that gentle woman, turned his resentment into these consoling words, "Don't worry.

I think I know my duty when it's put before me.
The Colossus shall not suffer." How tenderly she looked at him.

She made a magnanimity of the cooling of his resentment and she gave him that sacred reward--a mother's gratefulness.
"All right," said the merchant, "Do the best you can." His quick discernment had caught the play between Henry and Mrs.
Witherspoon.

"Of course I don't expect you to take my place.

I want you merely to show that the Witherspoon family hasn't run away." The doctor called and found his patient much improved.