“The Realty Company’ll go right on just the same,” he said.  “It’s like—­ it’s like sand, mamma.  It puts me in mind of chuldern playin’ in a sand-pile.  One of ’em sticks his finger in the sand and makes a hole, and another of ’em’ll pat the place with his hand, and all the little grains of sand run in and fill it up and settle against one another; and then, right away it’s flat on top again, and you can’t tell there ever was a hole there.  The Realty Company’ll go on all right, mamma.  There ain’t anything anywhere, I reckon, that wouldn’t go right on—­just the same.”

And he passed out slowly into the hall; then they heard his heavy tread upon the stairs.

Mrs. Sheridan, rising to follow him, turned a piteous face to her son.  “It’s so forlone,” she said, chokingly.  “That’s the first time he spoke since he came in the house this evening.  I know it must ‘a’ hurt him to hear Edith laughin’ with that Lamhorn.  She’d oughtn’t to let him come, right the very first evening this way; she’d oughtn’t to done it!  She just seems to lose her head over him, and it scares me.  You heard what Sibyl said the other day, and—­and you heard what—­what—­”

“What Edith said to Sibyl?” Bibbs finished the sentence for her.

“We can’t have any trouble o’ that kind!” she wailed.  “Oh, it looks as if movin’ up to this New House had brought us awful bad luck!  It scares me!” She put both her hands over her face.  “Oh, Bibbs, Bibbs! if you only wasn’t so queer!  If you could only been a kind of dependable son!  I don’t know what we’re all comin’ to!” And, weeping, she followed her husband.

Bibbs gazed for a while at the fire; then he rose abruptly, like a man who has come to a decision, and briskly sought the room—­it was called “the smoking-room”—­where Edith sat with Mr. Lamhorn.  They looked up in no welcoming manner, at Bibbs’s entrance, and moved their chairs to a less conspicuous adjacency.

“Good evening,” said Bibbs, pleasantly; and he seated himself in a leather easy-chair near them.

“What is it?” asked Edith, plainly astonished.

“Nothing,” he returned, smiling.

She frowned.  “Did you want something?” she asked.

“Nothing in the world.  Father and mother have gone up-stairs; I sha’n’t be going up for several hours, and there didn’t seem to be anybody left for me to chat with except you and Mr. Lamhorn.”

“’Chat with’!” she echoed, incredulously.

“I can talk about almost anything,” said Bibbs with an air of genial politeness.  “It doesn’t matter to me.  I don’t know much about business—­if that’s what you happened to be talking about.  But you aren’t in business, are you, Mr. Lamhorn?”

“Not now,” returned Lamhorn, shortly.

“I’m not, either,” said Bibbs.  “It was getting cloudier than usual, I noticed, just before dark, and there was wind from the southwest.  Rain to-morrow, I shouldn’t be surprised.”