ted petticoat, rested her slippered foot on the
fender, glanced down at the embroidered silk stocking covering her
ankle, and said in a graver tone:

"I like all kinds of people--in their proper place. This is my home,
and it is wise to get along with one's neighbors. Besides, they all
have tongues in their heads like the rest of the human race, and it is
just as well to have them wag for you as against you."

Jane paused for a moment, her eyes watching the blazing logs, and asked
with almost a sigh:

"You don't mean, dear, that you never intend to help Archie, do you?"

"Never is a long word, Jane. Wait till he grows up and I see what he
makes of himself. He is now nothing but a great animal, well built as a
young bull, and about as awkward."

Jane's eyes flashed and her shoulders straightened. The knife had a
double edge to its blade.

"He is your own flesh and blood, Lucy," she said with a ring of
indignation in her voice. "You don't treat Ellen so; why should you
Archie?"

Lucy took her foot from the fender, dropped her skirts, and looked at
Jane curiously. From underneath the half-closed lids of her eyes there
flashed a quick glance of hate--a look that always came into Lucy's
eyes whenever Jane connected her name with Archie's.

"Let us understand each other, sister," she said icily. "I don't
dislike the boy. When he gets into trouble I'll help him in any way I
can, but please remember he's not my boy--he's yours. You took him from
me with that understanding and I have never asked him back. He can't
love two mothers. You say he has been your comfort all these years.
Why, then, do you want to unsettle his mind?"

Jane lifted her head and looked at Lucy with searching eyes--looked as
a man looks when someone he must not strike has flung a glove in his
face.

"Do you really love anything, Lucy?" she asked in a lower voice, her
eyes still fastened on her sister's.

"Yes, Ellen and you."

"Did you love her father?" she continued in the same direct tone.

"Y-e-s, a little-- He was the dearest old man in the world and did his
best to please me; and then he was never very well. But why talk about
him, dear?"

"And you never gave him anything in return for all his devotion?" Jane
continued in the same cross-examining voice and with the same incisive
tone.

"Yes, my companionship--whenever I could. About what you give Doctor
John," and she looked at Jane with a sly inquiry as she laughed gently
to herse