huttered window, Mary began, her voice raised to meet the
need of Mrs. De Peyster's aural handicap. Now Marie Corelli may have
been the favorite novelist of a certain amiable queen, who somehow
managed to continue to the age of eighty-two despite her preference.
But Mrs. De Peyster liked no fiction; and the noble platitudes, the
resounding moralizings, the prodigious melodrama, the vast caverns
of words of the queen's favorite made Mrs. De Peyster writhe upon her
second maid's undentable bed. If only she actually did possess the
divine gift of defective hearing with which Mr. Pyecroft had afflicted
her! But in the same loud voice, trying to conceal her own boredom,
Mary read on, on, on--patiently on.

At length Matilda returned. Mary closed the book with a sigh of
relief, which on the instant she repressed.

"I'll read to you for a while two or three times a day," she promised.
"I know what a comfort it is to a sick person to hear a story she
likes."

Mrs. De Peyster did not even thank her.

CHAPTER XV

DOMESTIC SCENES

The provisions arrived; Mr. Pyecroft proved himself agreeably
competent and willing in the matter of their preparation; and such
as had appetites gorged themselves. Also Mr. Pyecroft proved himself
agreeably competent and willing to do his full share, and more, in the
matter of cleaning up.

Later in the forenoon, Mary again called on Mrs. De Peyster. "I hope
you don't mind a little praise directed at your family, Angelica,"
she said, in the loud voice she had adopted for that unfortunate.
"At first Jack and I thought your brother Archibald was--well--too
pompous. You know, clergymen are often that way. But the more we see
of him, the better we like him. He's so pleasant, so helpful. I hope
the little trouble he spoke of being in with the police isn't serious,
for Jack and I think he's simply splendid!"

Archibald's sister seemed indifferent to this praise of her brother.
At least she said nothing. So Mary took up "Wormwood" and half-shouted
another installment.

The spirits of Jack and Mary, which during the previous evening and
the earlier part of this morning had been subdued by concern over the
illness of the distant Mrs. De Peyster, had, an hour before Mary's
second visit, become suddenly hilarious. While Mary read, Mrs. De
Peyster wondered over this change. When the book was closed upon the
installment, she hesitatingly asked concerning this mystery.

"It's news about Mrs. De