and probably owing, in part, to her defective education, she became easily confused and bewildered in an argument.  She should have known, poor lady, that flights of imagination ought not to be attempted by a practical little body like herself, as the aforementioned retired grocer had more than once informed her during some of their little conjugal scenes in which Mrs. Brown’s bony fingers and long nails generally played an active part.  But if the lady aimed at dramatic effect, she succeeded only too well, for the little angular form, bristling with indignation, from the depths of the great crimson velvet easy chair, the lurid eyes emitting greenish lights, and the gaunt arm waved in the air, created a momentary diversion.  Mrs. Crane compressed her thin lips closely; Miss Cynthia raised a filmy lace handkerchief and coughed slightly, and Alicia Linden burst into a loud, masculine laugh.  Mrs. Brown instantly subsided and the conversation was skilfully turned into another channel.  The strong-minded widow was the only woman the diminutive lady really feared.

* * * * *

Presently there was a little flutter, a rustling of silken robes, more kissing and hand-shaking, and “good bye, loves,” and the little party dispersed.

* * * * *

“Widowed and fatherless; God pity them,” came in a low voice from a sad-faced woman, clad in the sable robes of mourning.  It was that “distant branch of the family,” none other than Mrs. Crane’s own widowed sister, for whom the patriotic contractor had so generously provided with a home, and one dollar fifty per week.  Tears were falling upon the work before her, but she brushed them away quietly as a shrill voice beside her cried,

“Blubbering again, Jane Phelps, and Lucinda’s new pearl-colored silk, that I paid five dollars a yard for, in your lap.  You miserable, ill-tempered, sulky thing; if you have soiled it, I’ll make you starve it out, and take it out of your wages, beside!”

“You could not make me suffer more, whatever you might do, for I am the most wretched, pitiable creature in existence,” sobbed the woman.

“Good enough for you,” was the response; “’as you make your bed, so you must lie.’  I always knew, for all your pretty, pink and white face, and meek ways, you’d come to grief.  You could always fool everybody but me, though mother’s pet, must have the best of everything to show off her good looks, and no matter what fell to my share.  I was so homely and unattractive it did not make any difference what I wore.  But the tables are turned now, eh, Jane!  The old folks didn’t know, when they thought they’d made you for this world and the next, by putting you ahead of me, and sounding your praises in the ear of that white-faced artist, that he’d die and leave their darling with nothing but a lot of unsalable, miserable pictures and a child to support!  They didn’t live to see it, to be sure, but I did, and, Jane, (coming closer