ence of one of them she was nearly always
absent-minded. Edith lived all day with her mother, as daughters do; and
Sheridan so held his wife to her unity with him that she had long ago
become unconscious of her existence as a thing separate from his. She
invariably perceived his moods, and nursed him through them when she
did not share them; and she gave him a profound sympathy with the inmost
spirit and purpose of his being, even though she did not comprehend it
and partook of it only as a spectator. They had known but one actual
altercation in their lives, and that was thirty years past, in the early
days of Sheridan's struggle, when, in order to enhance the favorable
impression he believed himself to be making upon some capitalists, he
had thought it necessary to accompany them to a performance of "The
Black Crook." But she had not once referred to this during the last ten
years.

Mrs. Sheridan's manner was hurried and inconsequent; her clothes rustled
more than other women's clothes; she seemed to wear too many at a time
and to be vaguely troubled by them, and she was patting a skirt down
over some unruly internal dissension at the moment she opened Bibbs's
door.

At sight of the recumbent figure she began to close the door softly,
withdrawing, but the young man had heard the turning of the knob and the
rustling of skirts, and he opened his eyes.

"Don't go, mother," he said. "I'm not asleep." He swung his long legs
over the side of the bed to rise, but she set a hand on his shoulder,
restraining him; and he lay flat again.

"No," she said, bending over to kiss his cheek, "I just come for a
minute, but I want to see how you seem. Edith said--"

"Poor Edith!" he murmured. "She couldn't look at me. She--"

"Nonsense!" Mrs. Sheridan, having let in the light at a window, came
back to the bedside. "You look a great deal better than what you did
before you went to the sanitarium, anyway. It's done you good; a body
can see that right away. You need fatting up, of course, and you haven't
got much color--"

"No," he said, "I haven't much color."

"But you will have when you get your strength back."

"Oh yes!" he responded, cheerfully. "THEN I will."

"You look a great deal better than what I expected."

"Edith must have a great vocabulary!" he chuckled.

"She's too sensitive," said Mrs. Sheridan, "and it makes her exaggerate
a little. What about your diet?"

"That's all right. They told me to eat anything."