r some subsequent and private
reassurance from Mrs. Peopping and Mrs. Keller, went for her hansom ride
with a pleasant anticipation of the Park in red leaf, Mrs. Plush, in a
brocade cape with ball fringe, sitting erect beside her.

One day, in the presence of Mrs. Peopping, Mrs. Jett jumped to her feet
with a violent shaking of her right hand, as if to dash off something
that had crawled across its back.

"Ugh!" she cried. "It flopped right on my hand. A minnow! Ugh!"

"A what?" cried Mrs. Peopping, jumping to her feet and her flesh seeming
to crawl up.

"A minnow. I mean a bug--a June bug. It was a bug, Mrs. Peopping."

There ensued a mock search for the thing, the two women, on all-fours,
peering beneath the chairs. In that position they met levelly, eye to
eye. Then without more ado rose, brushing their knees and reseating
themselves.

"Maybe if you would read books you would feel better," said Mrs.
Peopping, scooping up a needleful of steel beads. "I know a woman who
made it her business to read all the poetry books she could lay hands
on, and went to all the bandstand concerts in the Park the whole time,
and now her daughter sings in the choir out in Saginaw, Michigan."

"I know some believe in that," said Mrs. Jett, trying to force a smile
through her pallor. "I must try it."

But the infinitesimal stitching kept her so busy.

* * * * *

It was inevitable, though, that in time Henry should begin to shoulder
more than a normal share of unease.

One evening she leaned across the little lamplit table between them as
he sat reading in the Persian-design dressing gown and said, as rapidly
as her lips could form the dreadful repetition, "The fish, the fish, the
fish, the fish." And then, almost impudently for her, disclaimed having
said it.

He urged her to visit her doctor and she would not, and so, secretly, he
did, and came away better satisfied, and with directions for keeping her
diverted, which punctiliously he tried to observe.

He began by committing sly acts of discretion on his own accord. Was
careful not to handle the fish. Changed his suit now before coming
home, behind a screen in his office, and, feeling foolish, went out and
purchased a bottle of violet eau de Cologne, which he rubbed into his
palms and for some inexplicable reason on his half-bald spot.

Of course that was futile, because the indescribably and faintly rotten
smell of the sea came through, n