e attitude of old Mrs. Higgins when her son's wife
arrived, fitting a winter cloak to her trim figure. At the sudden
suggestion she sat down overcome.

"Oh, God forgive you, Judy," said she, "even to mention such a thing. I
forbid you ever to speak of it again. I don't care what woman came in
the door, I'd turn her out like a thramp. He's mine, I've been widout
him ten years, and I'm going to hold him now against every schemin'
woman in the world."

"Faith," said Judy, "I don't want to see another woman in the house anny
more than yerself. I'm on'y warnin' yez. It 'ud jist break my heart to
lose the grandher he's afther puttin' on yez."

The two women looked about them with mournful admiration. The house,
perfect in its furnishings, delighted the womanly taste. In Anne's
wardrobe hung such a collection of millinery, dresses, ornaments, that
the mere thought of losing it saddened their hearts. And the loss of
that future which Anne Dillon had seen in her own day-dreams ... she
turned savagely on Judy.

"You were born wid an evil eye, Judy Haskell," cried she, "to see things
no wan but you would ever think of. Never mention them again."

"Lemme tell ye thin that there's others who have somethin' to say
besides meself. If they're in a wondher over Artie, they're in a greater
wondher over Artie's mother, buyin' silks, an' satins, an' jools like an
acthress, an' dhressin' as gay as a greenhorn jist over from Ireland."

"They're jealous, an' I'm goin' to make them more so," said Anne with a
gleeful laugh, as she flung away care and turned to the mirror. For the
first time since her youth she had become a scandal to her friends.

Judy kept Arthur well informed of the general feeling and the common
opinion, and he took pains not only to soothe his mother's fright but
also to explain the little matters which irritated her friends. Mrs.
Everard did not regard the change in Anne with complacency.

"Arthur is changed for the better, but his mother for the worse," she
said to Judy, certain that the old lady would retail it to her mistress.
"A woman of fifty, that always dressed in dark colors, sensibly, to take
all at once to red, and yellow, and blue, and to order bonnets like the
Empress Eugenie's ... well, one can't call her crazy, but she's on the
way."

"She has the money," sighed Mona, who had none.

"Sure she always had that kind of taste," said Judy in defence, "an'
whin her eyes was blue an' her hair yalla, I dun