id this morning," replied John,
looking at David with a laugh.

CHAPTER VII

The meal proceeded in silence for a few minutes. Mrs. Cullom had said
but little, but John noticed that her diction was more conventional than
in her talk with David and himself in the morning, and that her manner
at the table was distinctly refined, although she ate with apparent
appetite, not to say hunger. Presently she said, with an air of making
conversation, "I suppose you've always lived in the city, Mr. Lenox?"

"It has always been my home," he replied, "but I have been away a good
deal."

"I suppose folks in the city go to theaters a good deal," she remarked.

"They have a great many opportunities," said John, wondering what she
was leading up to. But he was not to discover, for David broke in with a
chuckle.

"Ask Polly, Mis' Cullom," he said. "She c'n tell ye all about the
theater, Polly kin." Mrs. Cullom looked from David to Mrs. Bixbee, whose
face was suffused.

"Tell her," said David, with a grin.

"I wish you'd shet up," she exclaimed. "I sha'n't do nothin' of the
sort."

"Ne' mind," said David cheerfully. "_I'll_ tell ye, Mis' Cullom."

"Dave Harum!" expostulated Mrs. Bixbee, but he proceeded without heed of
her protest.

"Polly an' I," he said, "went down to New York one spring some years
ago. Her nerves was some wore out 'long of diff'rences with Sairy about
clearin' up the woodshed, an' bread risin's, an' not bein' able to suit
herself up to Purse's in the qual'ty of silk velvit she wanted fer a
Sunday-go-to-meetin' gown, an' I thought a spell off 'd do her good.
Wa'al, the day after we got there I says to her while we was havin'
breakfust--it was picked-up el'phant on toast, near 's I c'n remember,
wa'n't it, Polly?"

"That's as near the truth as most o' the rest on't so fur," said Polly
with a sniff.

"Wa'al, I says to her," he proceeded, untouched by her scorn, "'How'd
you like to go t' the theater? You hain't never ben,' I says, 'an' now
you're down here you may jes' as well see somethin' while you got a
chanst,' I says. Up to that _time_," he remarked, as it were in passing,
"she'd ben somewhat pre_juced_ 'ginst theaters, an'----"

"Wa'al," Mrs. Bixbee broke in, "I guess what we see that night was
cal'lated----"

"You hold on," he interposed. "I'm tellin' this story. You had a chanst
to an' wouldn't. Anyway," he resumed, "she allowed she'd try it once,
an' we agreed we'd go somewheres that ni