to ransack wardrobes and
presses for costumes for charades. She drove herself and her friends
about in various vehicles, briskly and well, and indulged besides in
many secret charities. Her husband thought no such woman had ever
trodden the earth, and publicly blessed the day on which he first set
eyes on her.

"After the dose I'd 'ad with me first, 'twas a bit of a risk, that I
knew. And it put me off me sleep for a night or two before'and. But my
Tilly's the queen o' women--I say the queen, sir! I've never 'ad a
wrong word from 'er, an' when I go she gits every penny I've got. Why,
I'm jiggered if she didn't stop at 'ome from the Races t'other day, an'
all on my account!"

"Now then, pa, drop it. Or the doctor'll think you've been mixing your
liquors. Give your old pin here and let me poultice it."

He had another sound reason for gratitude. Somewhere in the background
of his house dwelt his two ne'er-do-well sons; Tilly had accepted their
presence uncomplainingly. Indeed she sometimes stood up for Tom,
against his father. "Now, pa, stop nagging at the boy, will you? You'll
never get anything out of 'im that way. Tom's right enough if you know
how to take him. He'll never set the Thames on fire, if that's what you
mean. But I'm thankful, I can tell you, to have a handy chap like him
at my back. If I 'ad to depend on your silly old paws, I'd never get
anything done at all."

And so Tom, a flaxen-haired, sheepish-looking man of something over
thirty, led a kind of go-as-you-please existence about the place, a
jack-of-all-trades--in turn carpenter, whitewasher, paper-hanger--an
expert fetcher and carrier, bullied by his father, sheltered under his
stepmother's capacious wing. "It isn't his fault 'e's never come to
anything. 'E hadn't half a chance. The truth is, Mary, for all they say
to the opposite, men are harder than women--so unforgiving-like. Just
because Tom made a slip once, they've never let 'im forget it, but tied
it to 'is coat-tails for 'im to drag with 'im through life.
Littleminded I call it.--Besides, if you ask me, my dear, it must have
been a case of six of one and half a dozen of the other. Tom as
sedoocer!--can you picture it, Mary? It's enough to make one split."
And with a meaning glance at her friend, Tilly broke out in a
contagious peal of laughter.

As for Johnny--well ... and she shrugged her shoulders. "A bad egg's
bad, Mary, and no amount o' cooking and doctoring 'll sweeten it. But
he d