ened her eyes, rational, I thought to myself, 'Maybe she don't know
she's keeled an' would be humiliated if she did,' so I acted callous,
an' I says, offhand like, I says, pushin' her apron around behind her
over its _vice versa_, so's to cover up the eggs, which I thought had
better be broke to her gently, I says, 'I just called in, Mis' Morris,
to borry your recipe for angel-cake--or maybe get you to bake one for
us' (I knew she baked on orders). An' with that, what does she do but go
over again, limp as wet starch, down an' through every egg in that
basket, solid _an'_ fluid!

"Well, by this time, a man who had seen her at her first worst an' run
for a doctor, he come in with three, an' whilst they were bowin' to each
other an' backin', I giv' 'er stimulus an' d'rectly she turned upon me
one rememberable gaze, an' she says, 'Doctors,' says she, 'would you
think they'd have the gall to try to get me to cook for 'em? They've
ordered angel-ca----' An' with that, over she toppled again, no pulse
nor nothin', same as the dead!"

While the blonde talked she busied herself with her loosely falling
locks, which she tried vainly to entrap.

"An' yet you say she ain't classed as crazy? I'd say it of her, sure!
An' so old Morris is dead--burned in that old hotel! Well, well! Poor
old fellow! Dear old place! What times I've had!"

She spoke through a mouthful of gilt hairpins and her voice was as an
AEolian harp.

"An' he burned in it--an' she's a widow yet! Yes, I did hear there'd
been a fire, but you never can tell. I thought the chimney might 'a'
burned out--an' I was in the thick of bein' engaged to the night clerk
at the Singin' Needles Hotel at Pineville at the time--an' there's no
regular mail there. I thought the story might be exaggerated. Oh no, I
didn't marry the night clerk. I'm a bride now, married to the head
steward, same rank as poor old Morris--an' we're just _as_ happy! I used
to pleg Morris about _her_ hair, but I'd have to let up on that now.
Mine's as red again as hers. No, not my hair--_mine's_ hair. It's as red
as a flannen drawer, every bit an' grain!

"But, say," she added, presently, "when she gets better, just tell her
never mind about that reci-pe. I copied it out of her reci-pe book
whilst she was under the weather, an' dropped a dime in her cash-drawer.
I recollect how old Morris used to look forward to her angel-cakes
week-ends he'd be goin' home, an' you know there's nothin' like havin'
amm