om
their cast-iron methods. Long since he had despaired of expecting
adaptability from them. They must cling to their rut or all was _lost._
Once out of their customary channel, and they were like tossing ships,
rudderless and without an anchor.

Their solicitude for him was another source of exasperation. There were
days when the brute in him rose and clamored to strike Mary for tagging at
his heels with coats and medicines, and Eliza for her lynxlike
observation of every mouthful he ate. But he curbed the impulse,
shamefacedly confessing himself to be ungrateful.

Had his tolerance been reenforced by insight, he would have understood
that the very qualities which so exasperated him sprang from his sister's
laudable desire to voice a gratitude they could not put into words by
neglecting no act which would promote his welfare; but Martin, alas, was
not a psychologist, and therefore was unable to translate his annoyances
in these interpretative terms.

In truth, what Mary, Eliza, and Jane were as individuals concerned him
very little. He always thought of them as a composite personality, a sort
of female trinity.

Nevertheless Mary, Eliza, and Jane Howe were not a trinity. They were
three very distinct beings.

Mary had had spinsterhood thrust upon her. At heart she was a mother, a
woman created to nurse and comfort. Her greatest happiness was derived
from fluttering about those she loved and waiting upon them. Had she
dared, she would have babied Martin to an even greater extent than she
did. As it was, when she was not at his elbow with warmer socks, heavier
shoes, or a cup of hot coffee, she was worrying about Mary and Eliza,
brewing tonics for them, or putting burning soapstones in their beds. It
was a pity Life had cheated her of having a dozen babies to pilot through
the mazes of measles and whooping cough, for then Mary would have been in
her element. Yet nature is a thing of inconsistencies, and through some
strange, unaccountable caprice, Mary's marital instincts stopped with this
fostering instinct. In every other respect she was an old maid. Men she
abhorred. Like Jennie Wren, she knew their tricks and their manners--or
thought she did--which for all practical purposes amounted to the same
thing. Had it been necessary for her to prove some of the theorems she
advanced concerning the male sex, she would have been at a loss to do so,
since the scope of her experience was very limited. Nevertheless, with
ge