e range, he knew--as
she smiled at Consuello with an extended hand.

"Miss Carrillo, my mother," John said.

"I'm happy to meet you, Miss Carrillo," Mrs. Gallant said. "John has
spoken so often to me of you that I really feel I know you."

"I have been so anxious to meet you--to know you," Consuello said. "I,
too, feel I know you because he has told me so much about you. I only
wish I had been thoughtful enough to have had you with us last Sunday.
The next time you must be with us."

Consuello was unaffected, John thought, in her praise of his mother's
dinner. She insisted upon aiding in the removal of plates from the table
and for the most part her conversation was with Mrs. Gallant. What
delicious salad, she must have the dressing recipe if Mrs. Gallant would
be so kind as to give it to her. She told in details that were
meaningless to John of the Spanish dishes her mother prepared, of the
barbecue feasts of the old days she remembered as a child.

He could see that his mother was interested, pleased, and he was
relieved that Consuello alleviated the awkwardness imposed by the
absence of someone to wait upon them. He left the table once to answer a
ring at the door and found Mrs. Sprockett's husband there, coatless and
collarless as usual.

"Is Maude here?" asked Mrs. Sprockett's husband, trying to appear as
though he was not peering past John, which he was.

John was certain that Mrs. Sprockett's husband knew as well as he did
that Mrs. Sprockett was not with them. He had more than a suspicion that
Mr. Sprockett, having seen the automobile bring Consuello, had crossed
the street out of pure curiosity.

"No," he said, shortly, an impulse rising in him to add, "and you know
it."

"I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Sprockett's husband, humbly. "She didn't
say, you know--I thought she might have--the baby----"

As on the night of his father's death John heard the Sprockett infant,
who, he had a vague idea, was the eleventh or twelfth, wailing somewhere
in the Sprockett home.

"No trouble," he said, shutting the door in the other's face.

They had been in the living room an hour after dinner when Mrs. Gallant
rose.

"You must excuse me, Miss Carrillo," she said. "There is a neighborly
duty I must attend to. Please remain until I return; it won't be long."

John was rather disappointed that his mother should leave them, but he
understood how she was constantly being required for one reason or
another by the n