less than deft, his continuously displayed ability playfully to
pierce Lulu. Some one had "married at the drop of the hat. You know the
kind of girl?" And some one "made up a likely story to soothe her own
pride--you know how they do that?"

"Well," said Ina, "my part, I think _the_ most awful thing is to have
somebody one loves keep secrets from one. No wonder folks get crabbed
and spiteful with such treatment."

"Mamma!" Monona shouted from her room. "Come and hear me say my
prayers!"

Monona entered this request with precision on Ina's nastiest moments,
but she always rose, unabashed, and went, motherly and dutiful, to hear
devotions, as if that function and the process of living ran their two
divided channels.

She had dispatched this errand and was returning when Mrs. Bett crossed
the lawn from Grandma Gates's, where the old lady had taken comfort in
Mrs. Bett's ministrations for an hour.

"Don't you help me," Mrs. Bett warned them away sharply. "I guess I can
help myself yet awhile."

She gained her chair. And still in her momentary rule of attention, she
said clearly:

"I got a joke. Grandma Gates says it's all over town Di and Bobby Larkin
eloped off together to-day. _He_!" The last was a single note of
laughter, high and brief.

The silence fell.

"What nonsense!" Dwight Herbert said angrily.

But Ina said tensely: "_Is_ it nonsense? Haven't I been trying and
trying to find out where the black satchel went? Di!"

Di's laughter rose, but it sounded thin and false.

"Listen to that, Bobby," she said. "Listen!"

"That won't do, Di," said Ina. "You can't deceive mamma and don't you
try!" Her voice trembled, she was frantic with loving and authentic
anxiety, but she was without power, she overshadowed the real gravity of
the moment by her indignation.

"Mrs. Deacon----" began Bobby, and stood up, very straight and manly
before them all.

But Dwight intervened, Dwight, the father, the master of his house. Here
was something requiring him to act. So the father set his face like a
mask and brought down his hand on the rail of the porch. It was as if
the sound shattered a thousand filaments--where?

"Diana!" his voice was terrible, demanded a response, ravened among
them.

"Yes, papa," said Di, very small.

"Answer your mother. Answer _me_. Is there anything to this absurd
tale?"

"No, papa," said Di, trembling.

"Nothing whatever?"

"Nothing whatever."

"Can you imagine how such a ridic