omething different, it's a nuisance.
I'd almost rather have a wife that wasn't so good but had some give to
her." He sat down, clutching a heavy shoe which came off suddenly. Lettice
was as immobile as the chest of drawers.

"Goddy knows," he burst out again, "it's solemn enough around here anyhow
with Sim Caley's old woman like a grave hole, and now you go and get it
too.... Berry might put up with it, and Sim's just fool-hearted, but a
regular man wouldn't abide it, he'd--he'd go to Paris, where the women are
civilized and dance all night." He muttered an unintelligible period about
French widows and pink.... "Buried before my time," he proclaimed. He
stood with his head grizzled and harsh above an absurdly flowing
nightshirt. In the deepening light Lettice's countenance seemed thinner
than usual, her round, staring eyes were frightened, as though she had
seen in the night the visible apparition of the curse of suffering laid
upon all birth.

"You look like you've taken leave of your wits," he exclaimed in an
accumulated exasperation; "say something." He leaned across the bed, and,
grasping her elbow, shook her. She was as rigid, as unyielding, as the
bed posts. Then with a long, slow shudder she turned and buried her head
in the pillow.

XIV

Rutherford Berry and Effie, Barnwell K. and the delicate Rose, left after
breakfast. Sim drove off behind the sturdy horse and Mrs. Caley was
audibly energetic in the kitchen. When Gordon appeared on the porch
Lettice was seated in the low rocker that had so often held Clare. She
responded in a suppressed voice to her husband's salutation. "You went and
spoiled Effie's whole visit," she informed him, "making Rutherford
drunk."

"Why," he protested, "we never; he just got himself drunk."

"It was mean anyway--sitting drinking all night in the stable."

"You'll say I was drunk too next."

"It doesn't matter to you what I say, or what I go through with. I've
stood more than I rightly ought, more than I'm going to--you must give me
one thought in a day. You just act low. Father was self-headed, but he was
never real trashy. He never got into fights at those common camp
meetings."

"I threw the stone that hit Buck, didn't I! I busted his head open, didn't
I! Oh, of course, I'm to blame for it all ... put it on me."

"Well, how did you get in it? how did you get mixed up with the
school-teacher?"

"I got Mrs. Caley to thank for this, and I'll thank her." He hotly