e and waited in gloomy ennui for
the conversation to stop. Cousin Emelene flowed on, her voice unsteady
with a very real emotion.

"See, dear, you must not blame me for my lack of faith... but see how it
looked to me. There I was, as womanly a woman as ever breathed, and yet
_I_ had no home to be sanctified, _I_ had never had a bit of chivalrous
protection from any man. And with the New Haven stocks shrinking from
one day to the next, the way they do, it looked as though I would either
have to starve or engage in the wicked, unwomanly folly of earning
my own living. Do you know, dear Genevieve, I had almost come to the
point--you know how the suffragists do keep banging away at their
points--I almost wondered if perhaps they were right and if men really
mean those things about protection and support in place of the vote....
And then George's splendid, noble-spirited article appeared, and a kind
friend interpreted it for me and told what it really meant, for _me_!
Oh, Genevieve."... The tears rose to her mild eyes, her gentle, flat
voice faltered, she took out a handkerchief hastily. "It seemed too good
to be true," she said brokenly into its folds. "I've longed all my life
to be protected, and now I'm going to be!"

"Which room, please?" said the expressman. "We gotta be goin' on."

Genevieve pinched herself hard, jumped and said "_ouch_." Yes, she was
awake, all right!

"Oh, Marie, will you please get Hanna a saucer of milk?" said Cousin
Emelene now, seeing the maid's round eyes glaring startled from the
dining-room door. "And just warm it a little bit, don't scald it. She
won't touch it if there's the least bit of a scum on it. Just take that
ice-box chill off. Here, I'll go with you this time. Since we're going
to live here now, you'll have to do it a good many times, and I'd better
show you just how to do it right."

She disappeared, leaving a trail of caressing baby-talk to the effect
that she would take good care of muvver's ittie bittie kittie.

She left Genevieve for all practical purposes turned to stone. She felt
as though she were stone, from head to foot, and she could open her
mouth no more than any statue when, in answer to the next repetition,
very peremptory now, of "Which room?" a voice as peremptory called from
the open front door, "Straight upstairs; turn to your right, first door
on the left."

As the men started forward, banging the mahogany banisters with the
corners of the trunk at every s