Mrs. Spragg, once reconciled—­or at least resigned—­to the mysterious necessity of having to “entertain” a friend of Undine’s, had yielded to the first touch on the weak springs of her garrulity.  She had not seen Mrs. Heeny for two days, and this friendly young man with the gentle manner was almost as easy to talk to as the masseuse.  And then she could tell him things that Mrs. Heeny already knew, and Mrs. Spragg liked to repeat her stories.  To do so gave her almost her sole sense of permanence among the shifting scenes of life.  So that, after she had lengthily deplored the untoward accident of Undine’s absence, and her visitor, with a smile, and echoes of divers et ondoyant in his brain, had repeated her daughter’s name after her, saying:  “It’s a wonderful find—­how could you tell it would be such a fit?”—­it came to her quite easily to answer:  “Why, we called her after a hair-waver father put on the market the week she was born—­” and then to explain, as he remained struck and silent:  “It’s from UNdoolay, you know, the French for crimping; father always thought the name made it take.  He was quite a scholar, and had the greatest knack for finding names.  I remember the time he invented his Goliath Glue he sat up all night over the Bible to get the name...  No, father didn’t start in as a druggist,” she went on, expanding with the signs of Marvell’s interest; “he was educated for an undertaker, and built up a first-class business; but he was always a beautiful speaker, and after a while he sorter drifted into the ministry.  Of course it didn’t pay him anything like as well, so finally he opened a drug-store, and he did first-rate at that too, though his heart was always in the pulpit.  But after he made such a success with his hair-waver he got speculating in land out at Apex, and somehow everything went—­though Mr. Spragg did all he could—.”  Mrs. Spragg, when she found herself embarked on a long sentence, always ballasted it by italicizing the last word.

Her husband, she continued, could not, at the time, do much for his father-in-law.  Mr. Spragg had come to Apex as a poor boy, and their early married life had been a protracted struggle, darkened by domestic affliction.  Two of their three children had died of typhoid in the epidemic which devastated Apex before the new water-works were built; and this calamity, by causing Mr. Spragg to resolve that thereafter Apex should drink pure water, had led directly to the founding of his fortunes.

“He had taken over some of poor father’s land for a bad debt, and when he got up the Pure Water move the company voted to buy the land and build the new reservoir up there:  and after that we began to be better off, and it did seem as if it had come out so to comfort us some about the children.”