ty, and more or less bright and entertainin' in her
chat when she was in the right mood. I'd often come in and found Vee
chucklin' merry over some of the things Miss Gray had been tellin' her.
And while she was at our house she seemed full of life and pep. Just the
sort that Vee gets along with best. She was the same whenever we met her
up at the Ellinses. But outside of that you never saw her anywhere. She
wasn't in with the Country Club set, and most of the young married crowd
seemed to pass her up too.

I didn't know why. Guess I hadn't thought much about it. I knew she'd
lost her father and mother within the last year or so, so I expect I put
it down to that as the reason she wasn't mixin' much.

But Vee has all the inside dope. Seems old man Gray had been a chronic
invalid for years. Heart trouble. And durin' all the last of it he'd
been promisin' to check out constant, but had kept puttin' it off.
Meanwhile Mrs. Gray and Marion had been fillin' in as day and night
nurses. He'd been a peevish, grouchy old boy, too, and the more waitin'
on he got the more he demanded. Little things. He had to have his food
cooked just so, the chair cushions adjusted, the light just right. He
had to be read to so many hours a day, and played to, and sung to. He
couldn't stand it to be alone, not for half an hour. Didn't want to
think, he said. Didn't want to see the women folks knittin' or
crocheting: he wanted 'em to be attending to him all the while. He had a
little silver bell that he kept hung on his chair arm, and when he rang
it one or the other of 'em had to jump. Maybe you know the kind.

Course, the Grays traveled a lot; South in the winter, North in
summer--always huntin' a place where he'd feel better, and never findin'
it. If he was at the seashore he'd complain that they ought to be in the
mountains, and when they got there it wouldn't be a week before he had
decided the air was bad for him. They should have known better than to
take him there. Most likely one more week would finish him. Another long
railroad trip would anyway. So he might as well stay. But wouldn't
Marion see the landlord and have those fiendish children kept quiet on
that tennis court outside? And wouldn't Mother try to make an eggnog
that didn't taste like a liquid pancake!

Havin' been humorin' his whims a good deal longer than Marion, and not
being very strong herself, Mrs. Gray finally wore out. And almost before
they knew anything serious was t