her hands in effortless agony. This lady, as she
afterward related to Mrs. Bean, felt mean! She could see in her mind's
eye, she said, how it all looked to Hetty Cronney, the _Fall of Rome_
with its opulent leisurely class of excursionists steaming away from her
lonely little figure on the wharf; while Mabel Tuttle, selfish devourer
of the Hutches' substance and hair to everything, would still be handing
aroun' her boxes of French-mixed and talking baby talk to that there
bird!

At the moment, Mrs. Tinneray's mind, dwelling upon the golden cage and
its over-estimated occupant, became a mere boiling of savage desires.
Suddenly the line of grim resolution hardened on her face. This look,
one that the Tinneray children invariably connected with the switch
hanging behind the kitchen door, Mr. Tinneray also knew well. Seeing it
now, he hastened to his wife.

"What's the matter, Mother, seasick? Here I'll git you a lemon."

Mrs. Tinneray, jaw set, eyes rolling, was able to intimate that she
needed no lemon, but she drew her husband mysteriously aside. She fixed
him with a foreboding glare, she said it was a wonder the Lord didn't
sink the boat! Then she rapidly sketched the tragedy--Mrs. Tuttle serene
and pampered on the deck, and Hetty Cronney desolate on the wharf! She
pronounced verdict.

"It's _terrible_--that's what it is!"

Mr. Tinneray with great sagacity said he'd like to show Mabel Tuttle
her place--then he nudged his wife and chuckled admiringly,

"But yet for all, Hetty's got her tongue in her head yet--say, ain't she
the little stinger?"

_Sotto voce_ Mr. Tinneray related to his spouse how Mabel Tuttle was
bragging about her brick house and her shower-bath and her automobile
and her hired girl, and how she'd druv herself and that there bird down
to Boston and back.

"Hetty, she just stands there, just as easy, and hollers back that
Cronney has bought a gramophone and how they sets by it day and night
listening, and how it's son and daughter to 'em. Then she calls up to
Mabel Tuttle, 'I should think you'd be afraid of meddlin' with them
ottermobiles, _your_ time of life.'"

Mr. Tinneray choked over his own rendition of this audacity, but his
wife sniffed hopelessly.

"_They_ ain't got no gramophone--_her_, with that face and hat?--Cronney
don't make nothing; they two could _live_ on what that Blue Silk Quilt
feeds that stinkin' parrot."

But Mr. Tinneray chuckled again, he seemed to be possessed with