d stealthily, and, closing the door,
stood with her back against it.

"I suppose you know what--what you've done?" suggested Miss Greene.

She spoke in a sepulchral tone; it chilled poor Mr. Korner to the bone.

"It is beginning to come back to me, but not--not very clearly,"
admitted Mr. Korner.

"You came home drunk--very drunk," Miss Greene informed him, "at two
o'clock in the morning. The noise you made must have awakened half the
street."

A groan escaped from his parched lips.

"You insisted upon Aimee cooking you a hot supper."

"I insisted!" Mr. Korner glanced down upon the table. "And--and she did
it!"

"You were very violent," explained Miss Greene; "we were terrified at
you, all three of us." Regarding the pathetic object in front of her,
Miss Greene found it difficult to recollect that a few hours before she
really had been frightened of it. Sense of duty alone restrained her
present inclination to laugh.

"While you sat there, eating your supper," continued Miss Greene
remorselessly, "you made her bring you her books."

Mr. Korner had passed the stage when anything could astonish him.

"You lectured her about her housekeeping." There was a twinkle in the
eye of Mrs. Korner's bosom friend. But lightning could have flashed
before Mr. Korner's eyes without his noticing it just then.

"You told her that she could not add, and you made her say her tables."

"I made her--" Mr. Korner spoke in the emotionless tones of one merely
desiring information. "I made Aimee say her tables?"

"Her nine times," nodded Miss Greene.

Mr. Korner sat down upon his chair and stared with stony eyes into the
future.

"What's to be done?" said Mr. Korner, "she'll never forgive me; I know
her. You are not chaffing me?" he cried with a momentary gleam of hope.
"I really did it?"

"You sat in that very chair where you are sitting now and ate poached
eggs, while she stood opposite to you and said her nine times table. At
the end of it, seeing you had gone to sleep yourself, I persuaded her
to go to bed. It was three o'clock, and we thought you would not mind."
Miss Greene drew up a chair, and, with her elbows on the table, looked
across at Mr. Korner. Decidedly there was a twinkle in the eyes of Mrs.
Korner's bosom friend.

"You'll never do it again," suggested Miss Greene.

"Do you think it possible," cried Mr. Korner, "that she may forgive me?"

"No, I don't," replied Miss Greene. At which Mr. Korner's face fel