eridan?"

"Well, I DID know they been doin' their own house-work a good while
back," said Mrs. Sheridan. "And now they're doin' the cookin', too."

Sibyl sent forth a little titter with a sharp edge. "I hope they find
something to cook! She sold her piano mighty quick after Jim died!"

Bibbs jumped up. He was trembling from head to foot and he was dizzy--of
all the real things he could never have dreamed in his dream the last
would have been what he heard now. He felt that something incredible was
happening, and that he was powerless to stop it. It seemed to him that
heavy blows were falling on his head and upon Mary's; it seemed to
him that he and Mary were being struck and beaten physically--and that
something hideous impended. He wanted to shout to Sibyl to be silent,
but he could not; he could only stand, swallowing and trembling.

"What I think the whole family ought to understand is just this," said
Sibyl, sharply. "Those people were so hard up that this Miss Vertrees
started after Bibbs before they knew whether he was INSANE or not!
They'd got a notion he might be, from his being in a sanitarium, and
Mrs. Vertrees ASKED me if he was insane, the very first day Bibbs took
the daughter out auto-riding!" She paused a moment, looking at Mrs.
Sheridan, but listening intently. There was no sound from within the
room.

"No!" exclaimed Mrs. Sheridan.

"It's the truth," Sibyl declared, loudly. "Oh, of course we were all
crazy about that girl at first. We were pretty green when we moved up
here, and we thought she'd get us IN--but it didn't take ME long to read
her! Her family were down and out when it came to money--and they had to
go after it, one way or another, SOMEHOW! So she started for Roscoe; but
she found out pretty quick he was married, and she turned right around
to Jim--and she landed him! There's no doubt about it, she had Jim, and
if he'd lived you'd had another daughter-in-law before this, as sure as
I stand here telling you the God's truth about it! Well--when Jim was
left in the cemetery she was waiting out there to drive home with Bibbs!
Jim wasn't COLD--and she didn't know whether Bibbs was insane or not,
but he was the only one of the rich Sheridan boys left. She had to get
him."

The texture of what was the truth made an even fabric with what was not,
in Sibyl's mind; she believed every word that she uttered, and she spoke
with the rapidity and vehemence of fierce conviction.

"What I feel abou