very pink, her eyes very bright,
subsided into silence. In silence she sat throughout the rest of
the conference. In silence she descended in the elevator with T.A.
Buck, and in silence she stepped into his waiting car.

T.A. Buck eyed her worriedly. "Well?" he said. Then, as Mrs.
McChesney shrugged noncommittal shoulders, "Tell me, how do you
feel about it?"

Emma McChesney turned to face him, breathing rather quickly.

"The last time I felt as I do just now was when Jock was a baby.
He took sick, and the doctors were puzzled. They thought it might
be something wrong with his spine. They had a consultation--five
of them--with the poor little chap on the bed, naked. They
wouldn't let me in, so I listened in the hallway, pressed against
the door with my face to the crack. They prodded him, and poked
him, and worked his little legs and arms, and every time he cried
I prayed, and wept, and clawed the door with my fingers, and
called them beasts and torturers and begged them to let me in,
though I wasn't conscious that I was doing those things--at the
time. I didn't know what they were doing to him, though they said
it was all for his good, and they were only trying to help him.
But I only knew that I wanted to rush in, and grab him up in my
arms, and run away with him--run, and run, and run."

She stopped, lips trembling, eyes suspiciously bright.

"And that's the way I felt in there--this afternoon."

T.A. Buck reached up and patted her shoulder. "Don't, old girl!
It's going to work out splendidly, I'm sure. After all, those
chaps do know best."

"They may know best, but they don't know Featherlooms," retorted
Emma McChesney.

"True. But perhaps what Jock said when he walked with us to the
elevator was pretty nearly right. You know he said we were
criticising their copy the way a plumber would criticise the
Parthenon--so busy finding fault with the lack of drains that we
failed to see the beauty of the architecture."

"T.A.," said Emma McChesney solemnly, "T.A., we're getting old."

"Old! You! I! Ha!"

"You may 'Ha!' all you like. But do you know what they thought of
us in there? They thought we were a couple of fogies, and they
humored us, that's what they did. I'll tell you, T.A., when the
time comes for me to give Jock up to some little pink-faced girl
I'll do it, and smile if it kills me. But to hand my Featherlooms
over to a lot of cold-blooded experts who--well--" she paused,
biting her lip.

"We'