as undoubtedly a
play-actress.

"How do you know?" Matilda inquired, with sarcastic inflection.

"If she ain't," Grandmother parried, "what's she gallivantin' around the
country for without her husband?"

"Maybe he's dead."

"If he's dead, why ain't she wearin' mourning, as any decent woman
would? She's either a play-actress, or else she's a divorced woman, or
maybe both." Either condition, in Grandmother's mind, was the seal of
social damnation.

"If we was on callin' terms with the Marshs," said Matilda,
meditatively, "Mis' Marsh might be bringin' her here."

"Not twice," returned Grandmother, with determination. "This is my
house, and I've got something to say about who comes in it. I wouldn't
even have Mis' Marsh now, after she's been hobnobbin' with the likes of
her."

After reverting for a moment to the copper-coloured hair, which might or
might not be a wig, the conversation drifted back to mermaids and the
seafaring folk who went astray on the rocks. Aunt Matilda insisted that
there were no such things as mermaids, and Grandmother triumphantly dug
up the article in question from a copy of _The Household Guardian_ more
than three months old.

[Sidenote: Working Faithfully]

"It's a lie, just the same," Matilda protested, though weakly, as one in
the last ditch.

"Matilda Starr!" The clarion note of Grandmother's voice would have made
the dead stir. "Ain't I showed it to you, in the paper?" To question
print was as impious as to doubt Holy Writ.

Rosemary was greatly relieved when Mrs. Lee gave way to mermaids in the
eternal flow of talk. She wondered, sometimes, that their voices did not
fail them, though occasionally a sulky silence or a nap produced a brief
interval of peace. She worked faithfully until her household tasks were
accomplished, discovering that, no matter how one's heart aches, one can
do the necessary things and do them well.

Early in the afternoon, she found herself free. Instinct and remorseless
pain led her unerringly to the one place, where the great joy had come
to her. She searched her suffering dumbly, and without mercy. If she
knew the reason why!

"She's married, and her husband isn't dead, and they're not divorced."
Parrot-like, Rosemary repeated the words to herself, emphasising each
fact with a tap of her foot on the ground in front of her. Then a new
fear presented itself, clutching coldly at her heart. Perhaps they were
going to be divorced and then----

[Sideno