her expression was lost in sympathetic
comprehension as Mrs. West bowed her head and sprinkled the black serge
with her tears.

"There, there, Mis' West. Cry if you feel like it. Crying's the best
medicine when there's no men folks around to keep asking what the
matter is. Just let yourself go, and don't mind me."

"Of course you know," exclaimed Mrs. West, her fat shoulders heaving as
she took full advantage of the permission. "Everybody knows.
Everybody's talking about it. To think that a son of mine would stoop
to steal a wife's affection away from her lawful husband."

"Don't make things out any worse than they are, Mis' West. Your Thad
can't steal what never was. And Annabel Sinclair never had any
affection to give her husband nor nobody else."

Mrs. West's distress was too acute to permit her to find comfort in a
distinction purely technical. "Thad always was such a good boy,
Persis, but now I'm prepared for anything. I think she's capable of
working him up to the point of running away with her."

Again Persis proffered consolation. "I don't think so. Annabel
Sinclair's what I call a feeble sinner. She reminds me of Joel when he
was a little boy. He'd go down to the river, along in April when the
water was ice-cold, and he'd get off his clothes and stand on the bank
shivering. After his teeth had chattered an hour or so, mother'd come
to look him up and Joel would get into his trousers and go home meek as
a lamb. Well, Annabel's the same way. She likes to shiver on the bank
and think what a splash she'll make when she goes in, but she hasn't
got the courage to risk a wetting, let alone drowning."

Mrs. West, blinking through her tears, looked hard at her friend.
"Seems to me you're talking awful peculiar, Persis. 'Most as if you'd
respect Annabel more if she was wickeder."

"Maybe I would," acknowledged Persis bluntly. "Seems to me it's almost
better to have folks in earnest, if it's only about their sins.
Annabel Sinclair turns everything into play-acting, good and bad alike."

"I don't know why Thad can't see through her," cried the distracted
mother, voicing an age-old wonder. "I used to think he was as smart as
chain-lightning, but I've changed my mind. Any man that'll let Annabel
Sinclair lead him around by the nose hasn't got any more than just
sense enough to keep him out of an asylum for the feeble-minded, if he
_is_ my son."

"That's where all of 'em belong when it comes to