ught that, in a respectable house....

"That'll do," said Pa, dropping into the easy-chair in the dining-room.
"I'm worn out. If you'd been like me, Mrs. Clifton, running after those
Woolly-legs all the morning"--and he pointed to the apprentices standing
round the table--"gee, you wouldn't talk so much! I'll take Maud to the
hospital this afternoon; it's only a trifle. Is dinner ready?"

"Yes, dear."

"Come along, then, all of you Woolly-legs," said Pa jovially.

Pa was sorry for poor Maud, as a rule, but he felt a need to shed a little
gaiety, to extenuate the accident as far as possible, to turn it into a
joke, so as to prevent his girls from being panic-stricken. He talked of
heads smashed to a jelly, of legs in smithereens, of a bicyclist who had
had not one, but both eyes caught in the chain. As for himself, when he
was a small boy--that was in the time when they brought up artistes, real
ones, mind you; not, as nowadays, on sugar and sweets; no, real ones, on
the whip and the stick, damn it!--why, the accidents which he'd seen! Yes,
he himself, to go no farther, he could have shown them, here, there,
there, here, damn it, all over his body, scars deep enough to put your
finger in!

"Eh? Frightens you, does it? Never fear," added Pa, in a good-humored
voice, "that sort of thing won't happen to any of you Woolley-legs; a good
Irish stew is better than a kick of the pedal, eh?"

And Pa, after a last cup of strong tea, dismissed the girls, lit his pipe,
threw himself into the easy-chair, with his legs long out in front of him;
but soon:

"Well, Maud, what is it? What are you crying for now? I tell you, I'll buy
you a glass one," said Pa, at the sight of Maud, who blubbered silently
and sat glued to her chair instead of getting up to go.

Poor lost dog! Clifton, at the theater, had threatened to send her away.
She knew what that meant: leaving Miss Lily, losing those good meals....

Maud faltered something about packing up; pain in her eye; not her fault.

"So what you want is to stay with us?" asked Pa.

"Oh!" gasped Maud.

"Well, then, stay! But no more bike; you shall be Lily's lady's maid,"
said Pa, puffing at his pipe.

It went down so well, as an effort of dry humor, that Ma could not help
laughing. But Mr. Clifton was talking seriously. Then Ma, amazed,
protested: what, a servant in her house! A lady's maid for Lily! He would
end by giving her the moon! And what would Lily do all day? She'd sit
t