are
of you."

"How do you do, Katie?" The words were the same, but the tones were
much kinder than her greeting to me.

Dicky assisted her into the living room. She sank into the armchair,
and Dicky took off her hat and loosened her cloak. She leaned her head
against the back of the chair, and her face looked so drawn and white
that I felt alarmed.

"Katie, prepare a cup of strong tea immediately," I directed, and
Katie vanished. "Is there nothing I can do for you, Mrs. Graham?" I
approached her chair.

"Nothing, thank you. You may save the maid the trouble of preparing
that tea if you will. I could not possibly drink it. I always carry my
own tea with me, and prepare it myself. If it is not too much trouble,
Dicky, will you get me a pot of hot water and some cream? I have
everything else here."

I really felt sorry for Dicky. He caught the tension in the
atmosphere, and looked from his mother to me with a helpless
caught-between-two-fires-expression. With masculine obtuseness he put
his foot in it in his endeavor to remedy matters.

"Why do you call my mother Mrs. Graham, Madge?" he said querulously.
"She is your mother now as well as mine, you know."

"I am nothing of the kind." His mother spoke sharply. "Of all the
idiotic assumptions, that is the worst, that marriage makes close
relatives, and friends of total strangers. Your wife and I may learn
to love each other. Then there will be plenty of time for her to call
me mother. As it is, I am very glad she evidently feels as I do about
it. Now, Dicky, if you will kindly get me that hot water."

"I will attend to it," I said decidedly "Dicky, take your mother to
her room and assist her with her things. I will have the hot water and
cream for her almost at once."

In the shelter of the dining room, where neither Dicky nor his mother
nor Katie could see or hear me, I clenched my hands and spoke aloud.

"Call _her_ mother! Give that ill-tempered, tyrannical old woman the
sacred name that means so much to me. _Never_ as long as I live!"

Dicky met me at the door of the dining room and took the tray I
carried. It held my prettiest teapot filled with boiling water, a tiny
plate of salted crackers, together with cup, saucer, spoon and napkin.

"Say, sweetheart," he whispered, "I want to tell you something. My
mother isn't always like this. She can be very sweet when she wants
to. But when things don't go to suit her she takes these awful icy
'dignity' tantrums