woman who would be willing thus
to present herself above the breakfast table to any man, least of all
her husband. However, it was plain that, with Kathryn and her husband,
the least of all had become the most, and that, too, at an epoch when,
if ever, Kathryn needed to take the very greatest care to fix upon
herself the seal of lifelong and admiring devotion. Of course, there
might be such a thing as a devotion void of any admiration. Olive
Keltridge, however, was not a woman to accept that sort of thing.
Neither, she reflected swiftly, was Scott Brenton quite the sort of man
to offer it.

Meanwhile, Kathryn, seated in a chair a good deal lower than the laws
of perfect grace dictated, huddled her shabby dressing gown about her,
ran a vaguely apologetic hand through her puggy pompadour, and went on
with her domestic narration.

"It's so queer what sets them off, Miss Keltridge. One never knows when
they will fly up in a temper; at least, the kind I seem to get. I never
have the luck you do. Why, you have had the same second girl, ever
since we moved here."

"The? Oh, Margaret? Yes, she has been with us about nine years." Olive
smiled. "She seems almost like a member of the family, by now."

Kathryn shook her head in self-pity. The self-pity loosened a little
tail of hair which arose, rampant, from the exact middle of her crown.
However, Kathryn lacked a mirror within range, and so she talked on
quite as contentedly, despite the waving, waggling tail.

"Yes, so many other people seem to get that kind of girls, so devoted
and such competent ones; but, for my part, I don't see where they find
them. I pay the very highest prices, and I always look up their
references; but they all are just alike. I have had nine different
cooks, the last five months, and each one was a little worse than--"

"I met Mr. Brenton just now," Olive cut in, with decision.

"Did you?" his wife inquired indifferently. "I didn't know he had gone
out."

"Yes." Olive's decision increased a little. "I thought he wasn't
looking very well."

"Scott? Oh, he's well enough. What should ail him?" Kathryn loosened
her soggy draperies for an instant, then tightened them in the reverse
direction. "He hasn't a worry to his name, hardly a care."

Struggle as she would, Olive knew her accent was becoming more dry with
every sentence that she uttered.

"I should have supposed the church--"

"Church? That's nothing. At least, it's only in his line of b