onastic newspaper and
rattled it.

Miss Maria received a sudden chill apprehension that Winthrop was
looking much older lately. "But--" she faltered. Then she resolutely
returned to the baiting. "I suppose you recall her saying that she has a
daughter. Probably," admitted Miss Maria, grudgingly, "an attractive
daughter."

"It might be a very good thing," said the world-weary voice, and left
her gasping. "Two excellent Virginia families." He faced his sister's
appalled expression. "He might do something much more impossible--marry
a cheap actress or go into a monastery. His behaviour to-day prepares me
for anything. And"--a note of difficulty came into what Hugh had once
called his uncle's chiselled voice--"you do not appear to realize,
Maria, that what Mrs. Shirley has done is rather a remarkable thing, a
thing that you and I, with our undoubted appreciation of the value of
money, should probably have felt that we could not afford to do."

Hugh came in blithely, bringing a spring-smelling whiff of outdoors with
him. "I got her a taxi," he announced, "and she asked me to come down to
their place for Easter. There's a hunting club. Oh cheer up, Aunt Maria!
At least she left the money behind."

"Look at my needle!" cried the long-suffering lady. "_You_ did that. I
must say, Hugh, I find your conduct most disrespectful."

"All right, I grovel," Hugh agreed, pleasantly. He picked up the cat and
rubbed her tenderly the wrong way.

"As for the money, I don't see how her conscience could have allowed her
to accept everything. And she married somebody else, too."

"So did Dante's girl. That doesn't seem to make all the difference.
Conscience?" Hugh went on, absently. "Conscience? Haven't I heard that
word somewhere before? You are the only person I know, Aunt Maria, who
has a really good, staunch, weather-proof one, because, like the laws of
the Medes and Persians, it altereth not."

"I should hope not, indeed," said Miss Fowler, half mollified.

Hugh smiled sleepily. The cat opened one yellow eye and moved mystified
whiskers. She profoundly distrusted this affectionate young admirer. Was
she being stroked the wrong way or ruffled the right way?

"Tiger, tiger, burning bright," murmured Hugh. "Puzzle, Kitty: find the
Adventuress."

THE KITCHEN GODS

BY G.F. ALSOP

From _Century Magazine_

The lilies bloomed that day. Out in the courtyard in their fantastic
green-dragoned pots, one by one the tiny, ether