unition, in marriage, even if you never need it. Mine's in that frame
of mind now that transforms my gingerbread into angel-cake, but the time
may come when I'll have to beat my eggs to a fluff even for angel-cake,
so's not to have it taste like gingerbread to him.

"Oh no, he's not with me this trip. I just run down for a lark to show
my folks my ring an' things, an' let 'em see it's really so. He give me
considerable jewelry. His First's taste run that way, an' they ain't no
children.

"Yes, this amethyst is the weddin'-ring. I selected that on account of
him bein' a widower. It's the nearest I'd come to wearin' second
mournin' for a woman I can't exactly grieve after. The year not bein' up
is why he stayed home this trip. He didn't like to be seen traversin'
the same old haunts with Another till it _was_ up. I wouldn't wait
because, tell the truth, I was afraid. He ain't like a married man with
me about money yet, an' it's liable to seize him any day. He might say
that he couldn't afford the trip, or that we couldn't, which would
amount to the same thing. I rather liked him bein' a little ticklish
about goin' around with me for a while. It's one thing to do a thing an'
another to be brazen about it--it----

"But if she don't get better"--the reversion was to the Widow
Morris--"if she don't get her mind poor thing! there's a fine insane
asylum just out of Pineville, an' I'd like the best in the world to look
out for her. It would make an excuse for me to go in. They say they have
high old times there. Some days they let the inmates do 'most any old
thing that's harmless. They even give 'em unpoisonous paints an' let 'em
paint each other up. One man insisted he was a barber-pole an' ringed
himself accordingly, an' then another chased him around for a stick of
peppermint candy. Think of all that inside a close fence, an' a town so
dull an' news-hungry----

"Yes, they say Thursdays is paint days, an', of course, Fridays, they
are scrub days. They pass around turpentine an' hide the matches. But,
of course, Mis' Morris may get the better of it. 'Tain' every woman that
can stand widowin', an' sometimes them that has got the least out of
marriage will seem the most deprived to lose it--so they say."

The blonde was a person of words.

* * * * *

When Mrs. Morris had fully revived and, after a restoring "night's
sleep" had got her bearings, and when she realized clearly that her
suppose