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“Ask yourself what other roof than this she’d rather have over her head, and you’ve got your answer,” said Miss Tennyson.

“What did she do with herself while he was here?” exclaimed Mrs. Bolt.

“Nothing but sit-and-eat,” said Miss Tennyson. “And keep straight on looking like a sparrow.”

“She had to eat. Had nothing else to do to occupy her hands,” said Mrs. Pease, holding up a perfectly enormous afghan she was knitting as if by the porcelain light of the dogwood tree.

“Oh, surely you know she was occupied enough with this great big house to care for.” Miss Adele tilted up her face at it. The faint note of mockery that belonged in her voice had come back today.

“The house was not exactly a sight. Yes it was,” said Miss Tennyson. “The way they set off and left it to come back to—I won’t describe the way Adele and I found it.”

“Their bed wasn’t made,” suggested the minister’s wife.

“Well, if she made him happy. You’ve never caught me guilty yet of saying any more than that,” said Miss Tennyson.

The wild phlox was blue as a lake behind Miss Adele Courtland as she said, “Oh, indeed he doted on her.”

“Doted. You’ve hit on it. That’s the word,” said Miss Tennyson.

Laurel went on pulling weeds. Her mother’s voice came back with each weed she reached for, and its name with it. “Ironweed.” “Just chickweed.” “Here comes that miserable old vine!”

“It couldn’t be for her bridge game, if dote he did. Beggar-my-neighbor was more in her line of accomplishment,” said old Mrs. Pease grimly.

“Oh, he doted on her, exactly like a man will. I’d only wish to ask your precious father one question, if I could have him back just long enough for that, Laurel,” said Miss Tennyson, and with effort she leaned forward and asked it hoarsely: “What happened to his judgment?”

“He wasn’t as old as all that,” agreed Mrs. Pease. “I’m older. By a trifle.”

“A man can feel compunction for a child like Fay and still not have to carry it that far,” said Miss Tennyson. She called, “Laurel, do you know that when he brought her here to your house, she had very little idea of how to separate an egg?”

“And neither did he,” said Miss Adele.

“ ‘Frying pan’ was the one name she could give you of all the things your mother had in that kitchen, Laurel. Things like that get over town in a hurry, you know. I hate to tell you the upshot,” said Miss Tennyson, “but on Sundays, when no power on earth could bring Missouri, they walked from church and took their Sunday dinner in the Iona Hotel, in that dining room.”

On top of the tree, the mockingbird threw out his chest and let fall a cascade of song.

“Oh, it’s been the most saddening exhibition within my memory,” said old Mrs. Pease, crablike over her wool.

“Major and I just happen to walk that way too, when we go home from church. Sunday after Sunday we saw ’em through the dirty plate-glass window,” said Miss Tennyson. “Billing and cooing. No tablecloth.”

“A good thing you reminded me!” said Mrs. Bolt. “My husband hasn’t yet rehearsed his Sunday sermon to me, and he’s got just today and tomorrow.” She took her leave.

“Shocked her, but that service of her husband’s wasn’t up to Clinton, either,” said Miss Tennyson, settling back in the big old chair. “At the time, I didn’t object—the catch came in thinking it over later.”

“The whole day left something to be desired, if you want to hear me come right out with it,” said old Mrs. Pease.

“Go ahead. I know you’re blaming Major,” said Miss Tennyson. “Why he had to get so carried away as to round up those Chisoms, I’ll never know, myself. He said they were nothing but just good old Anglo-Saxons. But I said—”

“You can’t curb a Baptist,” Mrs. Pease said. “Let them in and you can’t keep ’em down, when somebody dies. When the whole bunch of Chisoms got to going in concert, I thought the only safe way to get through the business alive was not say a word, just sit as still as a mouse.”

“I, though, consider that the Chisoms did every bit as well as we did,” said Miss Adele.