e Split looked "like a
silly" with the white handkerchief bound over her left eye, and her
right one swollen and teary. She wondered, did Sissy, that they should
take such a fright with them. And thirdly, the censor of the family sins
made a mental note to the effect that Kate Madigan was putting on
altogether too many airs as she pulled on her gloves; there was an
inexcusable self-consciousness about her manner toward the Avalanche;
and as for old Westlake himself, he was clearly taking advantage of
Split's blindness and casting such glances at that giddy Kate as she,
Sissy, would certainly not have tolerated--if she had been invited to go
to the circus. If only she had!

It must not be supposed that the esthetic side of life for the Madigans
was represented wholly by women's walking-matches and the circus. There
was also the Tridentata.

Of course the Tridentata--the name was supposed to have something
to do with sage-brush--was very select. Naturally, for it had had
its origin in Mrs. Pemberton's strenuous estheticism and double
parlors--possessions of which few Comstockers could boast. But after the
infant literary society had learned to stand alone, it adopted migratory
habits, meeting now at the Misses Bryne-Stivers's cottage, now at Mrs.
Forrest's over-furnished rooms, and occasionally even at the Madigans'.

There was at least room enough at the Madigans; it was the one
particular in which they were never stinted. The long, shabby parlor had
sufficient seating-capacity, even if the chairs were not all, strictly
speaking, presentable.

"Shall I bring in the Versiye fotoy?" asked Split on one of the
occasions when the meeting of the Tridentata necessitated a real
house-cleaning in which the full corps of Madigans took part.

"The Versailles _fauteuil_, Irene," replied Miss Madigan, doubtfully,
"is not reliable. If I wasn't sure that Mrs. Pemberton, who has seen
the real ones, would be sure to ask where it is, I'd keep it out; for
the last time she came so near sitting on it while I was reading my
paper on 'Home-keeping' that I got so nervous I left out all that part
about the housewife's duty being, above all, to make a spiritual home:
to diffuse about herself a home atmosphere, so that wherever she sat,
wherever two or three gathered about her, there was the Sanctuary of the
Church of Home, so to speak. And--"

"Then you want me to bring it in?" Split had too much to do to listen to
Tridentata culture. Her