Miss Lulu Bett

parlour was rarely used, but eve

antly curved. The leather rocker, too, looked like Ina, brown, plumply upholstered, tipping back a bit. Really, the d

t-in a perpetual attitude of rearing back, with paws o

Mrs. Bett to the life. Colourless,

in the narrow pier glass, bodiless-looking in h

easel. A photograph of a man with evident eyes, evident lips, evident cheeks-and each of the six were rounded and convex. You could construct the rest of him. Down t

own eyes new? She dusted this photograph with a difference, lifted, dusted, set it back, less as a process than as an experience. As she dusted the m

i emerge from the house. Di had been caring for her canary and she carried her bird-bath and went to the well, and Lulu divined that Di had deliberately disregarded the handy kitchen taps. Lulu dusted the south window

e open. Airs of May b

"Now wait till I rinse." And again: "You needn't be so

ke: "Who's glum?" h

ughed at him was deep within him, and

re pretty nice. But I d

ted derisively. "Is that why yo

ve her now, and enjoyed his triumph. But Di looked up at him shyly and lo

Teasing her about him, were they? He straigh

I teased you. I-I never wante

her. "I never thought it

ght hair, met his eyes full. "And you never cam

into t

essed the exercise of some secret gift, had seen

Got him right over. B

oked over-shoulder, with a manner of s

he way it had been. Of course that was the way it had been. What a fool he had been not to understand. He cast his eyes repeatedly toward the house. He managed to make the job last over so that he could return in the af

were eighteen, but Lulu felt for them no adult indulgence. She felt th

called to Di, saying: "Take some out

participating. It was

to the Chautauqua Circle. To these meetings Lulu never w

ne. Lulu thought about such gatherings in somewhat the way that a futurist receives the subjects of his art-forms not vague, but heightened to intolerable definiteness, acute colour, and always motion-motion as an inte

r called. "You com

wn it, but superimposed on her Chautauqua thoughts had been her faint hope that it would be to-night, while she was in

ed at her ease. It was strange to see this woman, usually so erect and tense, now actually lolling, as if lolling were the positive, the

"I had on a delaine when I met your father." She described it. Both women talked freely, with animation. They were individuals and alive. To the two pallid bein

in bread-and-butter, and a dish of cold canned peas. She was committing all the excesses that she knew-offering opi

ast and inclined to hold up her sister's excellencies to

ault with Inie? Where'd you

aid no

t demanded shrilly.

more. After

of Inie," said Mrs. Be

and her long arms until her skirt lifted to show her really slim and pretty feet. Lulu's feet gave news

t admire the photograph, but she wanted to look at it. The house was still, there was no possibility of interrupti

t blame you a bit, mother," Lulu had said, as her mother named the intention.) Ina was asleep. (But Ina always took off the curse by calling it her "si-esta," lon

puppy to the porch post. A long shadow fell

't mean to arrive at the bac

o the porch, entered,

isn't it?

Lulu, and understood th

er," said Ninian. "So I

s chair and sat down heavily, forcing his fi

ulu. "I'll call I

said Ninian. "Let's yo

ently, hardly

rink if you can spare

ing to the dining-room china closet and brought a cut-glass tumbler

e ..." said she

ved, and brought his chair nearer to the table. "I didn't know Ina had a sis

nd glanced at

mother and me. But we do qu

not perceive that anything had been vi

her replies were given with sufficient quiet. But she told him her name as one tells something of another and more remote creatur

expect me?"

t with vehemence. "Why, we'

"how long have th

she answered:

were married," he computed. "I never met that one. Then it's

ulu said, and

hy

ong away from

er present experience were clarifying her understanding: Would it be so a

roamed around on his own." He liked the sound of it. "Roamed around on hi

on her hand and carved the crust. She was stup

he does.

" sai

ed, his even white teeth flashed. "I've had twenty years of galloping about," he

asked, alth

Mexico. Panama." He searched his

t desire to see any of these places. She did not want to see the

ife," he in

thed. "I----" she tr

n mostly?" he

t in her doings she was throw

n here. Fifteen years with Ina. Be

on one side. He watched her veined hands pinc

ett?" he abruptly

shed in

remity of failure. Then from unplumbed depths anot

ed with

r doubted it." He made his palms taut a

ned, smiled. Her fa

herself ask, and his shoutings redouble

George, I never thought of that before! There's no

matter,"

y n

y people wa

ever laughed at what she said save Herbert, who laughed at her.

foot in the heel of the other and blundering forward, head down, her short, straight hair flapping over her face. She landed flat-fo

og?" she

finished something that he was saying to Lulu. Monon

your uncle,"

known form of romance, Monona w

inding in the plural some vague

le said my stars, such a great big tall girl

Monona. She had spied

ught to me by Santa Claus, who k

. Of course-often! Some day he was going to melt a diamond and eat it. Then you sparkled all over in the dark, ever after. Another diamond he was going to plant. They

ow again he was the tease, the brag

tentive, softened, subdued. Some pretty, faint light visited h

, "that you're going to do something

ulse, born of the need to keep some

as looking away from her, and she looked at him. He was completely like his picture.

something that's nice before I quit," she said. Nor was this hope now independently true, but only this surprising longing to appear interesting in his eyes. To

tuff," he rem

ughed

pened. Ina

e a pedlar, beheld her child in his clasp, made a quick, forward s

one formula. "I believe I'm your

d the mind of Lul

often, warm, transform, humanise. It

ouble e to the initial vowel. She slurred the rest, until

isse

use all right? Of course! Any one could direct him, she should hope. And he hadn't seen Dwight? She must telephone him. But then she arrested herself with a sharp, curved fling o

d elbows stiff and danced up and d

ies!" she screamed, and

"I brought her a pup, and if I

rd bath. Ninian said the un-spellable "m-m," rising inflection, and the "I see," prolonging the verb as was expected of him. Ina said that they meant to build a summer-house, only, dear me, when you have

ate. Now the meeting, exclamation

eping throug

and their guests, the Plows, were constrained to remain in the parlour. The Plows were gentle, faintly

device of his to induce humour. He called it "croquette." He had never been more irrepressible. The advent of his brother was

" said Dwight. "Nin and

ways excited by life, so faintly excited by him

ed a dwarf rocker, and he wa

big chair for a big man." She spoke

pread sanity even to Ina's estate and she would have told him why he should exchange chairs. As

ggling. Monona had also been driven from the kitchen where Lulu was, for some reason, hurrying through the dishes. Monona now ran to Mrs. Bett, stood beside her and stared abou

eyebrows up. She caught h

think it to look at us, but mother had

oster-mother who had taken these two boys and seen them through the graded scho

and see her while you'

al assent, lacking his bro

e down into a nice, quiet, married dentist and magistrate

lau

question,"

lau

ething about his travels. He is quite a traveller, yo

ghed res

acon," Mrs. Plow said. "You kn

irrigation, business. For the populations Ninian had no respect. Crops could not touch ours. Soil mighty poor p

absolutely no intensive observation. His contacts were negligible. Mrs. Plow was mor

we think-" He told about running away to the state fair. "I thought," he wound up, irrelev

casually spoken. "Take a trip abroad" is the phrase, or "Go to Europe" at the very least, and both with empressement. Dwight had somewhere noted a

rcling the child Monona, no

ile the going was good,"

t. But Ina frowned. Mamma did these things occasionally when ther

't fair, it

an rose and l

ner were they finished and set away than Lulu had been attacked by an unconquerable inhibition. And instead of going to

ather shy of Di. A night or two before, coming home with "extra" cream, she had gone round t

y got to be a great man. I could ne

by, responding only faintly to their greet

ulu: "I s'pose you hea

ole matter by a flat "no." "Because," she sa

one else. Had not Lulu taught her to make buttonholes

o them," she thought now, sitting by t

even Ina. Perhaps they would send Monona. She waited at firs

fed," she thought, and derived an obscure satis

n came into

hat he had come to see whe

d wished that she had bee

at all right. Say, why in time d

don't

't she come along.' Then I remembered the dishes.

lly, one wondered where she got it. "They're

what are you

sti

arm. "Se?ora," he said,-his Spanish mat

a. All

narrating and did not observe that entrance. To the Plow

notes, descen

eeping rim of white embroidery. Her lace front wrinkled when she sat, and perpetually she adjusted it. She curled her feet si

narration, there was a pause,

telling it," she observed. "You got in some things I guess

Ina said "Darling-quiet!"-chin a little lifted, lower lip rev

if it would let up raining at all. Di and Jenny came whispering i

ar about my trip up the Amazon, because I

e said. Lulu kept the position which she had taken at first, and she dare not change. She saw the blood in the veins of her hands and wanted to

n years some one was talking and looking not onl