is_
good! Wine or no wine, it goes right to the spot!"

In munching the cake the child forgot that she had not finished what she
had started to say, and with bated breath and lips grimly tense Tilly
reminded her of her omission.

"Oh yes, about that fuss!" Dora swallowed as she resumed. "Bill ripped
her up for scolding about me. He said that it was a shame the way I was
treated, and that if something wasn't done right off--me sent to school
and fed and clothed better--he was going to court about it. Lord! Lord!
how mad Aunt Jane was, and Liz, too! They said he was trying to make
trouble. That was a month ago. Huh! I think they are right! What
business is it to that old pot-bellied duck what I do or don't do? He is
no kin of mine and I don't want to go to school, either. I tried it
once, and that was enough for me. Sat on a bench all day, with a prissy
old maid making me hold a book before my face."

Dora declined a third piece of cake without thanks other than a gesture
of repletion as she placed her hand on her stomach, smiled, and shook
her unkempt head.

"No. I'd make myself sick," she said. "I'll take a drink of water,
though. I seem to feel lumps of it lodged in my chest. I reckon I put in
too much at once. If I had wine, now-- But of course that is out of the
game."

Tilly supplied the water. Her heart was as heavy as lead. She was afraid
to admit that she believed the terrible thing which, like the bile of
some all-inclosing disease, was oozing into her consciousness. She led
the child into the sitting-room and listlessly invited inspection of
this or that article--the few photographs on the table, a china vase
holding flowers, a new Bible which was the inscribed wedding-present of
the minister's wife, and some other things which to Tilly now seemed to
weep in sheer sympathy for her under the horror which brooded over her.
But she fought off the suspicion. It couldn't be--it mustn't be.

"My mother-in-law--Mrs. Trott--John's mother," she stammered in the
effort to speak unconcernedly. "Being a widow, she will need money,
help from me and John, won't she? Don't you think so, Dora?"

"No, Aunt Jane says no," answered the child, making a wry face as she
looked at a picture of Tilly's father. "Gee! what an old pie-faced
hayseed this is! For the Lord's sake, who is it?"

"But why won't she need it?" Tilly had heard the question, but did not
want to spare the time for a reply which might or might not embarrass