oak forest. Time
for that when I am dead and gone." The double chin quivered with
indignation. "I don't see why Trudy and Gay won't come here and take
the two front rooms. They'd be company for me."

She approved of Trudy's views of life as much as she disapproved and
was rather afraid of this young woman who wanted to bustle her into
trim house dresses instead of the eternal wrappers.

"I kept Trudy only because she needed work--and a home," Mary said,
frankly; "and because you wanted her. But my salary does nicely for
us. Besides, it would be a bad influence for Luke to have such a
person as Gay about. We must make a man out of Luke."

"Don't go upsetting him. He eats his three good meals a day and always
acts like a little gentleman. You'll nag at him until he runs away
like my brother Amos did."

"Better run away from us than run over us," Mary argued; "but there is
no need of planning for Trudy's return. Their home will be in a good
part of the city, if it consists in merely hanging onto a lamp-post.
You don't realize that Gay is a bankrupt snob and married Trudy only
because he could play off cad behind his pretty wife's skirts. Men
will like Trudy and the women ridicule and snub her until she finds
she has a real use for her claws. Up to now she has only halfway kept
them sharpened. In a few years you will find Mr. and Mrs. Gaylord
Vondeplosshe in Hanover society with capital letters, hobnobbing with
Beatrice O'Valley and her set and somehow managing to exist in
elegance. Don't ask how they will do it--but they will. However, they
would never consider starting from our house. That would be getting
off on a sprained ankle."

Mrs. Faithful gulped the rest of her coffee. "No one has any use for
me because I haven't money. Our parlour was good enough for them to do
their courting in, and if they don't come and see me real often I'll
write Trudy a letter and tell her some good plain facts!"

"Be sure to say we all think Gay's mother must have been awful fond of
children to have raised him," Luke suggested from the offing.

Mary tossed a sofa pillow at him and disappeared. She could have
electrified her mother by telling her that Steve was to return that
morning, that the office was prepared to welcome him back, and that
Mrs. O'Valley would be anchored at the telephone to get into
communication with her dearest and best of friends.

As she walked to the street car she reproached herself for not having
told t