vious.

"I've got a word to say to you, Lena," remarked the reconstructed Mr.
Hornblower. "Women are all right when they keep their place. After
this I want to have it understood I'm not going to have any
interference in my business." He walked to the door and turned for a
parting defiance. "Damned if I will."

Mrs. Hornblower's attack of hysterics occupied Persis till noon. She
looked pale and heavy-eyed as she alighted from her car at her own
door. She was about to enter when an object on the lawn caught her
eye. Tacked to an upright stake driven into the turf, was a flapping
piece of brown paper on which appeared straggling letters, executed in
colored chalk.

"Notiss

I will not klene my teth agen onles I get a nikle a weak

Malcolm Dale."

Persis read this defiance twice, and her lips twitched. She turned
toward the house, but by this time the children had espied her and
shriekingly descended upon her, "like the plagues of Egypt," thought
Mary, watching from the window.

"What makes you look that way?" cried Celia, clutching Persis' hand.
"I don't like it."

"What way, child?"

"As though you was a widow."

Persis laughed, thereby diminishing her resemblance to the mourner of
Celia's fancy. With a child holding fast to each hand, and the others
prancing about her and getting underfoot like so many kittens, she made
her way indoors. "Children been good, Mary?"

"Why, yes'm," Mary admitted with reserve. "I gave Algie that cough
mixture same as you said, and Malcolm he kept coughing fit to tear his
throat to pieces. Betty says he likes the sirupy taste. And Celia
teased the baby kissing her till she got her crying."

"I like the taste of the baby," remarked Celia, who had lent an
attentive ear to the account of the family misdemeanors. "It's like
tooth powder, the pink kind."

"A letter came for you, Miss Dale. Now, my gracious, what's happened
to it? I put it right here on the table."

CHAPTER XXI

DE PROFUNDIS

In the unabashed pursuit of pleasure into which Persis had plunged,
Joel was a half-hearted participant. His life-long habit of standing
scornfully aloof while his fellow beings strove to enjoy themselves,
proved no match for Celia's artless appeals. "Please come, Uncle
Joel," she would, coax. "It's lots more fun with you along." And to
the open amusement of his neighbors and his sister's ill-concealed
wonder, Joel submitted to long automobile rides, to b