"What are you going to do to help the poor woman, John?" asked Mrs. Ranger, as the family sat at the belated meal.
"Ask Jean."
"What do you know about the case, daughter?"
"She thinks she knows a lot," interrupted her father. "She'd 'a' made a plaguy good lawyer if she'd only been born a 'boy."
"Who knew best what I ought to be,—you or God?" asked Jean, her eyes glowing like stars.
"I give it up," replied her father, smiling.
"I was reading to-day," said Mrs. Ranger," of a man down East who lured his runaway wife back home by stealing the babies and then warning everybody through the papers, and by posters, not to trust or harbor her, under penalty of the law. The woman held out quite a spell, but cold and hunger got the better of her at last; and when the stolen children fell sick, she went back to her lawful protector and stayed till she died, as meek as any lamb."
"Sally Danover won't go back to Sam O'Dowd; she'll die first," cried Mary; "and I glory in her grit."
"You haven't answered my question, John," said Mrs. Ranger. "What do you propose to do with Sally O'Dowd?"
"I s'pose I'll have to take her to Oregon and let her take a new start. She says she must get away from here, or go insane."
"I'd go crazy if I had to leave my children, John."
"You can boast, Annie; you can afford to. But if you were in Sally's shoes, you'd sing a different song."
Mrs. Ranger shrugged her shoulders.
"I can't see why women with good husbands and happy homes are so ready to censure less fortunate women for breaking bonds that are unbearable," said her husband. "Women are women's worst enemies."
"Sam O'Dawd's no woman," exclaimed Jean.
