ith you to Jeff-Jack and ask his advice--oh!
Jane-Anne-Maria! _now_ what's broke?"

"Only a mother's heart!" She looked up from her handkerchief. "Go seek
his advice if you still covet it; I never trusted him; I only feared I
might doubt him unjustly. But now I know his intelligence, no less than
his integrity, is beneath the contempt of a Christian woman. I leave you
to your books. My bed----"

"O mother, I wasn't reading! Come, stay; I'll be as entertaining as a
circus."

"I can't; I'm all unstrung. Let me go while I can still drag----"

John rose. A horse's tread sounded. "Now, who can that be?"

He listened again, then rolled up his fists and growled between his
teeth.

"Cawnsound that foo'--mother, go on up stairs, I'll tell him you've
retired."

"I shall do nothing so dishonorable. Why should you bury me alive? Is it
because one friend still comes with no scheme for the devastation of our
sylvan home?"

Before John could reply sunshine lighted the inquirer's face and she
stepped forward elastically to give her hand to Mr. Dinwiddie Pettigrew.

When he was gone, Daphne was still as bland as May, for a moment, and
even John's gravity was of a pleasant sort. "Mother, you're just too
sweet and modest to see what that man's up to. I'm not. I'd like to tell
him to stay away from here. Why, mother, he's--he's courting!"

The mother smiled lovingly. "My son, I'll attend to that. Ah me!
suitors! They come in vain--unless I should be goaded by the sight of
these dear Widewood acres invaded by the alien." She sweetened like a
bride.

The son stood aghast. She lifted a fond hand to his shoulder. "John, do
you know what heart hunger is? You're too young. I am ready to sacrifice
anything for you, as I always was for your father. Only, I must reign
alone in at least one home, one heart! Fear not; there is but one thing
that will certainly drive me again into marriage."

"What's that, mother?"

"A daughter-in-law. If my son marries, I have no choice--I must!" She
floated upstairs.

XXXVI.

A NEW SHINGLE IN SUEZ

Next day--"John, didn't you rise very early this morning?"

"No, ma'am."

He had not gone to bed. Yet there was a new repose in his face and
energy in his voice. He ate breakfast enough for two.

"Millie, hasn't Israel brought my horse yet?"

He came to where his mother sat, kissed her forehead, and passed; but
her languorous eyes read, written all over him, the fact that she had
drawn