in a black crepe dress all day, rushed
out in pink satin with crystal trimming, and slippers with cut-glass
heels.

After the first rubber Mrs. Van Alstyne threw her cards on the floor and
said another day like this would finish her.

"Surely Dick is able to come now," she said, like a peevish child.
"Didn't he say the swelling was all gone?"

"Do you expect me to pick up those cards?" Mr. Sam asked angrily,
looking at her.

Mrs. Sam yawned and looked up at him.

"Of course I do," she answered. "If it wasn't for you I'd not have
stayed a moment after the funeral. Isn't it bad enough to have seven
trunks full of clothes I've never worn, and to have to put on poky old
black, without keeping me here in this old ladies' home?"

Mr. Sam looked at the cards and then at her.

"I'm not going to pick them up," he declared. "And as to our staying
here, don't you realize that if we don't your precious brother will
never show up here at all, or stay if he does come? And don't you also
realize that this is probably the only chance he'll ever have in the
world to become financially independent of us?"

"You needn't be brutal," she said sharply. "And it isn't so bad for
you here as it is for me. You spend every waking minute admiring Miss
Jennings, while I--there isn't a man in the place who'll talk anything
but his joints or his stomach."

She got up and went to the window, and Mr. Sam followed her. Nobody
pays any attention to me in the spring-house; I'm a part of it, like the
brass rail around the spring, or the clock.

"I'm not admiring Miss Jennings," he corrected, "I'm sympathizing, dear.
She looks too nice a girl to have been stung by the title bee, that's
all."

She turned her back to him, but he pretended to tuck the hair at the
back of her neck up under her comb, and she let him do it. As I stooped
to gather up the cards he kissed the tip of her ear.

"Listen," he said, "there's a scream of a play down at Finleyville
to-night called Sweet Peas. Senator Biggs and the bishop went down last
night, and they say it's the worst in twenty years. Put on a black veil
and let's slip away and see it."

I think she agreed to do it, but that night after dinner, Amanda King,
who has charge of the news stand, told me the sheriff had closed the
opera-house and that the leading woman was sick at the hotel.

"They say she looked funny last night," Amanda finished, "and I guess
she's got the mumps."

Mumps!

My joint gave