ying aside his newspaper to
venture three guesses as to its contents.

"Another one of those syrup pitchers."

"Oh dear!"--plucking the twine--"I hope not!"

"Some more nut picks."

"Daddy, stop calamity howling. Here's the card. Des Moines, Iowa. 'From
Lucile Willis, with love to her new sister.' Isn't that the sweetest!
It's something with a pearl handle."

"I know. Another one of those pie-spade things."

"Wrong! Wrong! It's two pieces. Oh!"

It was a fish set of silver and mother-of-pearl. A large-bowled spoon
and a sort of Neptune's fork, set up in a white-sateen bed.

"Say now, that _is_ neat," said Henry, appraising each piece with a show
of critical appreciation not really his. All this spread of the gewgaws
of approaching nuptials seemed meaningless to him; bored him. Butter
knives. Berry spoons. An embarrassment of nut picks and silver pitchers.
A sliver of silver paper cutter with a hilt and a dog's-head handle. And
now, for Fred's delectation this evening, the newly added fish set, so
appropriately inscribed from his sister.

Tilting it against the lamp in the place of honor, Ann Elizabeth turned
away suddenly, looking up at her father in a sudden dumb panic of which
he knew nothing, her two hands at her fair, bare throat. It was so hard
again to swallow. Impossible.

But finally, as was always the case, she did swallow, with a great surge
of relief. A little later, seated on her father's knee and plucking at
his tie in a futile fashion that he loved, she asked him:

"Daddy--about mother--"

They seldom talked of her, but always during these rare moments a
beautiful mood shaped itself between them. It was as if the mere breath
of his daughter's sweetly lipped use of "mother" swayed the bitter-sweet
memory of the woman he carried so faithfully in the cradle of his heart.

"Yes, baby--about mother?"

"Daddy"--still fingering at the tie--"was mother--was everything all
right with her up--to the very--end? I mean--no nerv--no pain? Just all
of a sudden the end--quietly. Or have you told me that just to--spare
me?"

She could feel him stiffen, but when his voice came it was even.

"Why, Ann, what a--question! Haven't I told you so often how mother just
peacefully passed on, holding a little pink you."

Sweet-Beautiful--his heart was tolling through a sense of
panic--Sweet-Beautiful.

"I know, daddy, but before--wasn't there any nerv--any sickness?"

"No," he said, rather harshly for him. "