A swollen udder is very uncomfortable."

Rose Waterford had a blistering tongue. No one could say such
bitter things; on the other hand, no one could do more
charming ones.

There was another thing I liked in Mrs. Strickland.
She managed her surroundings with elegance. Her flat was always
neat and cheerful, gay with flowers, and the chintzes in the
drawing-room, notwithstanding their severe design, were bright
and pretty. The meals in the artistic little dining-room were
pleasant; the table looked nice, the two maids were trim and
comely; the food was well cooked. It was impossible not to
see that Mrs. Strickland was an excellent housekeeper.
And you felt sure that she was an admirable mother. There were
photographs in the drawing-room of her son and daughter.
The son -- his name was Robert -- was a boy of sixteen at Rugby;
and you saw him in flannels and a cricket cap, and again in a
tail-coat and a stand-up collar. He had his mother's candid
brow and fine, reflective eyes. He looked clean, healthy, and normal.

"I don't know that he's very clever," she said one day, when I
was looking at the photograph, "but I know he's good. He has
a charming character."

The daughter was fourteen. Her hair, thick and dark like her
mother's, fell over her shoulders in fine profusion, and she
had the same kindly expression and sedate, untroubled eyes.

"They're both of them the image of you," I said.

"Yes; I think they are more like me than their father."

"Why have you never let me meet him?" I asked.

"Would you like to?"

She smiled, her smile was really very sweet, and she blushed a
little; it was singular that a woman of that age should flush
so readily. Perhaps her naivete was her greatest charm.

"You know, he's not at all literary," she said. "He's a
perfect philistine."

She said this not disparagingly, but affectionately rather, as
though, by acknowledging the worst about him, she wished to
protect him from the aspersions of her friends.

"He's on the Stock Exchange, and he's a typical broker.
I think he'd bore you to death."

"Does he bore you?" I asked.

"You see, I happen to be his wife. I'm very fond of him."

She smiled to cover her shyness, and I fancied she had a fear
that I would make the sort of gibe that such a confession
could hardly have failed to elicit from Rose Waterford.
She hesitated a little. Her eyes grew tender.

"He doesn't pretend to be a genius. He doesn't even mak