angrily, "a man who could hurt me
irreparably by letting it get about that my mother-in-law had to ask
him for a petty loan!"

Mary, with a troubled face, was slowly, silently setting up a game of
chess. She took the check, feeling like Becky Sharp, and tucked it into
her blouse.

"Come on, George, dear," she said, after an uneasy silence. She pushed
a white pawn forward. George somewhat unwillingly took his seat
opposite her, but could not easily capture the spirit of the game. He
made a hasty move or two, scowled up at the lights, scowled at the
windows that were already wide open to the sultry night, loosened his
collar with two impatient fingers.

"I'd give a good deal to understand your mother, Mary," he burst out
suddenly. "I'd give a GREAT deal! Her love of pleasure I can
understand--her utter lack of any possible vestige of business sense I
can understand, although my own mother was a woman who conducted an
immense business with absolute scrupulousness and integrity--"

"Georgie, dear! What has your mother's business ability to do with poor
Mamma!" Mary said patiently, screwing the separated halves of a knight
firmly together.

"It has this to do with it," George said with sudden heat, "that my
mother's principles gave me a pretty clear idea of what a lady does and
does not do! And my mother would have starved before she turned to a
comparative stranger for a personal loan."

"But neither one of her sons could bear to live with her, she was so
cold-blooded," Mary thought, but with heroic self-control she kept
silent. She answered only by the masterly advance of a bishop.

"Queen," she said calmly.

"Queen nothing!" George said, suddenly attentive.

"Give me a piece then," Mary chanted. George gave a fully aroused
attention to the game, and saving it, saved the evening for Mary.

"But please keep Mamma quiet now for a while!" she prayed fervently in
her evening devotions a few hours later. "I can't keep this up--we'll
have serious trouble here. Please make her stay where she is for a year
at least."

Two weeks, three weeks, went peaceably by. The Venables spent a happy
week-end or two with their children. Between these visits they were as
light-hearted as children themselves, in the quiet roominess of the New
York home. Mamma's letters were regular and cheerful, she showed no
inclination to return, and Mary, relieved for the first time since her
childhood of pressing responsibility, bloomed like a