tical, dry voice as she announced:

"Greek Key, Irish weave, spring, 1908, six dozen, fair order.

"Thistle pattern, fall, 1906, four dozen, eight darned, ten badly worn."

It seemed that I had been there a long time....

At length I heard Will's quick, nervous step, and as it neared the door
I rose, really reluctantly, and met him.

"I am quite in the doctor's hands," I said, "and I see that he thinks
it time for me to leave. Good-bye, Mr. Vail"--he put his hand out for
his gloves and cane--"if you are going, too, perhaps, can I take you
back in town with me? I motored out."

"I'm afraid you can't," he replied, with his twinkling smile, "because
I'm one of the ones that don't get out!"

I stared at him blankly.

"'That don't get out'!" I repeated stupidly. "_That don't get out_?
Why?"

"Because I'm insane," he said placidly.

* * * * *

I don't pretend to any unusual share of equanimity, and it was not till
we were back in the shelter of my own home, with the comfort of my own
tea-tray before me and my own little applewood fire snapping on the
hearth, that I brought myself to discuss the matter with Emily's boy.
He had come back with me and we were going to the opera together later.

"I suppose that was what you wanted me to see?" I said abruptly.

He nodded.

"Just that. I wanted your idea. It's one of the most interesting
cases--with all its complications--I ever knew. Father's turned it
over to me, practically. He knows all about it."

"But, Will, the man's as sane as I am!"

"How much did you talk with him?"

"Quite as much as with hundreds of other people!"

He smiled thoughtfully.

"Talk much with Mrs. Leeth?"

"Oh, yes--she seems much more ordinary than her eyes, doesn't she?"

"What did she say?"

"Oh, just commonplaces--I don't recall anything special...."

"Well, try, won't you? What _were_ the commonplaces?"

I applied myself to recollection. What, after all, _had_ she said? As
a matter of fact, beyond her linen tabulation I could not recall more
than a dozen words.

"Anyway," I remonstrated, "she makes you feel as if she talked! She
doesn't seem silent."

"No," he admitted thoughtfully, "that's true. But she never talks.
She hardly speaks to the servants--they're all under her, you know--but
they all seem to know what she wants. I've tested lots of them: the
cook, the laundresses, the furnace man, the steward--and when they come
to con