that makes her look?"

Mrs. De Peyster had to speak. "I--I--hardly, ma'am."

"There you go with that 'ma'am' again!"

"Hardly, Mary," mumbled Mrs. De Peyster.

"Because if she looks anything like that picture, it must simply scare
you to death to live with her. Did she ever bend her back?"

Silence.

"Or smile?"

Silence.

"Or forget that she was a De Peyster?"

Silence.

"The lady of that picture never did!" declared the little person
with conviction. "She's just dignity and pride--calm, remote, lofty,
icebergy pride. She can say her ancestors backwards. Why, she's her
family tree, petrified!"

Mrs. De Peyster did not feel called upon to add to these remarks.

"I don't see how she can possibly like me!" cried the little person.
"Do you, Matilda?"

"I suppose--you can--only wait--and see," replied Mrs. De Peyster.

"I haven't got any dignity, or any money, or any ancestors; only a
father and a couple of grandfathers--though I dare say there were some
Morgans before them. No, she'll never care for me--never!" wailed the
little person. "She couldn't! Why, she's carved out of a solid block
of dignity! She never did an un-De-Peyster thing in her life!"

Mrs. De Peyster felt herself choking. She had to get out of the room,
or die.

Just then Jack walked back in. For a few moments she had forgotten
Jack. The terror arising from the menace upstairs returned to her.
But Jack's happy face was assurance that as yet he knew nothing of the
second Matilda.

Yes, she had to get out, or die. And Jack's reappearance gave her
frantic mind a cue for an unbetraying exit.

"I'll go to the kitchen--and start supper," she gulped, and hurried
into the butler's pantry.

"Jack," she heard Mary's perplexed voice, "Matilda, somehow, seems
rather queer to me."

"She doesn't seem quite herself," agreed Jack.

Mrs. De Peyster sank into a chair beside the door, and sat there
motionless, hardly daring to breathe--shattered by the narrowness of
her escape, and appalled by this new situation that had risen around
her--too appalled even to consider what might be the situation's
natural developments. Soon amid the wild churning of various emotions,
anger began to rise, and outraged pride. Such cool, dumbfounding
impudence!

Then curiosity began to stir. Instinct warned her, incoherently, for
all her faculties were too demoralized to be articulate, that this was
no place for her. But those two persons in there--her son, and