When she returned to the dining-room, arrayed in her own finery, demure, triumphant, and had carried off Mr. Whey there would ensue an interval of silence broken only by the clattering together of the dishes Hannah snatched up.

“I guess he’s the kind of son-in-law would suit you,” she threw over her shoulder once to Edward.

“Why?” he inquired, letting down his newspaper nervously.

“Well, you seem to favour him, to make things as pleasant for him as you can.”

Edward would grow warm with a sense of injustice, the inference being that he was to blame for Mr. Wiley; if he had been a different kind of father another sort of suitor would be courting Lise.

“I have to be civil,” he protested.  He pronounced that, word “civil” exquisitely, giving equal value to both syllables.

“Civil!” Hannah scoffed, as she left the room; and to Janet, who had followed her into the kitchen, she added:  “That’s the trouble with your father, he’s always be’n a little too civil.  Edward Bumpus is just as simple as a child, he’s afraid of offending folks’ feelings ....  Think of being polite to that Whey!” In those two words Hannah announced eloquently her utter condemnation of the demonstrator of the Wizard.  It was characteristic of her, however, when she went back for another load of dishes and perceived that Edward was only pretending to read his Banner, to attempt to ease her husband’s feelings.  She thought it queer because she was still fond of Edward Bumpus, after all he had “brought on her.”

“It’s Lise,” she said, as though speaking to Janet, “she attracts ’em.  Sometimes I just can’t get used to it that she’s my daughter.  I don’t know who she takes after.  She’s not like any of my kin, nor any of the Bumpuses.”

“What can you do?” asked Edward.  “You can’t order him out of the house.  It’s better for him to come here.  And you can’t stop Lise from going with him—­she’s earning her own money....”

They had talked over the predicament before, and always came to the same impasse.  In the privacy of the kitchen Hannah paused suddenly in her energetic rubbing of a plate and with supreme courage uttered a question.

“Janet, do you calculate he means anything wrong?”

“I don’t know what he means,” Janet replied, unwilling to give Mr. Wiley credit for anything, “but I know this, that Lise is too smart to let him take advantage of her.”

Hannah ruminated.  Cleverness as the modern substitute for feminine virtue did not appeal to her, but she let it pass.  She was in no mood to quarrel with any quality that would ward off disgrace.

“I don’t know what to make of Lise—­she don’t appear to have any principles....”

If the Wiley affair lasted longer than those preceding it, this was because former suitors had not commanded automobiles.  When Mr. Wiley lost his automobile he lost his luck—­if it may be called such.  One April evening, after a stroll with Eda, Janet reached home about nine o’clock to find Lise already in their room, to remark upon the absence of Mr. Wiley’s picture from the frame.