re, and evenings, as I have stated, when she dozed in her
chair.

As usual when we are worried about Tish, we consulted her nephew,
Charlie Sands. But like all members of the masculine sex he refused to
be worried.

"She'll be all right," he observed. "She takes these spells. But trust
the old lady to come up smiling."

"It's either Christian Science or osteopathy," Aggie said dolefully.
"She's not herself. The fruit cake she sent me the other day tasted very
queer, and Hannah thinks she put ointment in instead of butter."

"Ointments!" observed Charlie thoughtfully. "And salves! By George, I
wonder--I'll tell you," he said: "I'll keep an eye open for a few days.
The symptoms sound like--But never mind. I'll let you know."

We were compelled to be satisfied with this, but for several days we
lingered in anxiety. During that painful interval nothing occurred to
enlighten us, except one conversation with Tish.

We had taken dinner with her, and she seemed to be all right again and
more than usually active. She had given up the Bran-Nut after breaking
a tooth on it, and was eating rare beef, which she had heard was
digested in the spleen or some such place, thus resting the stomach for
a time. She left us, however, immediately after the meal, and Hannah,
her maid, tiptoed into the room.

"I'm that nervous I could scream," she said. "Do you know what she's
doing now?

"No, Hannah," I said with bitter sarcasm. "Long ago I learned never to
surmise what Miss Tish is doing."

"She's in the bathroom, standing on one foot and waving the other in the
air. She's been doing it," Hannah said, "for weeks. First one foot, then
the other. And that ain't all."

"You've been spying on Miss Tish," Aggie said. "Shame on you, Hannah!"

"I have, Miss Aggie. Spy I have and spy I will, while there's breath in
my body. Twenty years have I--Do you know what she does when she come
home from these sneakin' trips of hers? She sits in a hot bath until the
wonder is that her blood ain't turned to water. And after that she uses
liniment. Her underclothes is that stained up with it that I'm ashamed
to hang 'em out."

Here Tish returned and, after a suspicious glance at Hannah, sat down.
Aggie and I glanced at each other. She did not, as she had for some time
past, line the chair with pillows, and there was an air about her almost
of triumph.

She did not, however, volunteer any explanation. Aggie and I were driven
to speculation, in whi