ort as he mused. His own
chances to win her, dishearteningly small at the best of times in view
of his checkered record, suddenly sank below the level of
insignificance and ceased to exist.

He looked across at Persis on the other side of the table. She had
picked up a piece of sewing, but her look of absorption showed that her
trained fingers were doing their work without the supervision of the
brain. Nor could he flatter himself that her thoughts were of him. He
was a modest man, but for the moment he resented with bitterness the
self-evident fact that she was temporarily oblivious to his presence.

He got to his feet, pushing back his chair noisily. "Maybe I'd better
be going, so's your letter will be dead sure to get to the post-office
on time," he said, his voice harsh with disappointment.

Persis stooped to bite a thread. "Thank you, Thomas," she answered
placidly. "I'll be easier in my mind when I know it's mailed."

CHAPTER VIII

EVE AND THE APPLE

Joel was aggrieved. For the second time in a month his sister was
planning to desert him. Putting the claims of an unborn infant before
his comfort, Persis had basely abandoned him to the wiles of Susan
Fitzgerald. And now she had agreed, though reluctantly, to do a day's
work for Mrs. Hornblower at the latter's home. That thrifty housewife
had urged a lame knee as her reason for requesting Persis to depart so
radically from her usual custom, and Persis had accepted the excuse
with reservations.

"Fact is, Lena Hornblower can never get it into her head that I'm a
dressmaker and not a sewing girl," Persis confided to Joel at the
breakfast table. "I'm not saying that her knee ain't lame, but I guess
if she can stand up to be fitted, she'd be equal to getting in and out
of a buggy. Lena Hornblower's always looking for a chance to save a
penny. She's got an idea that it's bound to be cheaper to have your
sewing done at the house. All I can say," concluded Persis, buttering
her toast, "is that she's going to find herself mistaken."

Joel's abstracted gaze indicated a total lack of interest in the
subject.

"I've been thinking," he remarked with that suavity of manner as
prophetic of a storm as thunder-claps in July, "that I might as well
get me a room somewhere in the neighborhood. There's no sense in
making a pretense that you're keeping house for me when you're gadding
and gadding, here to-day and to-morrow off the Lord knows where. If I