hand upon the pillow of her younger child, who slept beside
her. The pretty, nerveless hand, even in sleep, tremored like a caress,
for whatever Lottie's wifely failings, as a mother she was without
reproach. Lottie--vain, hysterical, bewailing her wrongs--was the same
Lottie now resting with a protecting arm thrown out--this Eugenia
admitted thoughtfully as she looked into the darkened room where the
thin blue flame cast a spectral light upon the sleepers. From this
shallow rooted nature had bloomed the maternal ardour of the Southern
woman, in whom motherhood is the abiding grace.

Eugenia closed the door and crossed the hall to Miss Chris, who was
reading her Bible as she seeded raisins into a small yellow bowl. The
leaves of the Bible were held open by her spectacle case which she had
placed between them; for while her hands were busy with material matters
her placid eyes followed the text.

"I thought I'd get these done to-night," she remarked as Eugenia
entered. "I'm going to make a plum pudding for Dudley to-morrow. Where
is he now?"

"A political barbecue, I believe," responded Eugenia indifferently as
she knotted the cord of her flannel dressing-gown. She yawned and threw
herself into a chair. "I wonder why everybody spoils Dudley so," she
added. "Even I do it. I am sitting up for him to-night simply because I
know he'll want to tell me about it all when he comes in."

"It's a good habit for a wife to cultivate," returned Miss Chris,
shaking the raisins together. "If my poor father stayed out until four
o'clock in the morning he found my mother up and dressed when he came
in."

"I should say it was 'poor' grandmamma," commented Eugenia drily. "But
Dudley won't find me after midnight." Then she regarded Miss Chris
affectionately. "What a blessing that you didn't marry, Aunt Chris," she
said. "You'd have prepared some man to merit damnation."

"My dear Eugie," protested Miss Chris, half shocked, half flattered at
the picture. "But you're a good wife, all the same, like your mother
before you. The only fault I ever saw in poor Meely was that she
wouldn't put currants in her fruit cake. Tom was always fond of
currants--" in a moment she abruptly recalled herself. "My dear, I don't
say you haven't had your trials," she went on. "Dudley isn't a saint,
but I don't believe even the Lord expects a man to be that. It doesn't
seem to set well on them."

"Oh, I am not blaming Dudley," returned Eugenia as leniently