them with such
determination and precision that they decided to let him go ahead and
murder her.

When Mrs. Fry's daughters hurried into the house a short time afterward,
they found their mother dressing and bandaging Mr. Fry's foot and
chokingly inquiring if she was hurting him. Between sentences she
applied a wet towel to a prodigious, unrecognizable object that had once
been her nose.

Juliet, the elder, planted herself in front of her father and
passionately inquired if it was true that he had dared to strike her
mother.

Lucius, with rare forethought, had provided himself with a stick of
stove-wood before entering the house. He now held it in his right hand.
He was not going to take any chances on his wife's treachery. He was
ready for the slightest sign of an uprising. Without answering his
daughter's question, he took a firm grip on the stick and started to
arise from his chair, upsetting the pail of water that his wife had been
using. Mrs. Fry screeched.

"Don't hit her! Don't kill her, Lucius! For God's----"

"Shut up!" snarled Lucius. "I'm goin' to belt the life out of her if she
comes around here disturbin' the peace. I'm peaceable now, Stella--we've
got perfect peace now, ain't we? But if she tries to--Well, you'll see
what'll happen, young lady. Go an' get a mop and clean up that water.
D'ye hear me? Beat it!"

"For the Lord's sake, Juliet, do what he tells you," begged Mrs. Fry.

"An' do it _quick_," said Mr. Fry.

Having so suddenly--and unintentionally--gained the upper hand in his
household, he was determined if possible to retain it. Temporarily at
least he had his wife scared almost to death and so submissive that he
couldn't think of half enough indignities to heap upon her, no matter
how hard he tried; and his disdainful daughters spoke in hushed voices,
and got up every morning to start the kitchen fire, and carried in the
wood, and waited on him first at meals, and allowed him to read _The
Banner_ before any one else claimed it, and fed the chickens, and
behaved as daughters ought to behave. It was too good to be true. But as
long as it really appeared to be true, he couldn't afford to relax for
an instant; he went about with a perpetual scowl and swore from morning
till night.

Every other week he went out to the stable, and after closing the doors,
proceeded to belabour an old saddle with a pitchfork handle. The sounds
reaching the back porch of the house caused Mrs. Fry to cover he