d--no, indeed; I wish I could! But one must conform to a certain
extent, mustn't one? And every respect that I can possibly show to his
memory--especially after the way he has treated me! I suppose you
heard--" "What?" Guthrie had heard, but asked the question to fill time.

"Five thousand a year," said she, "at my absolute and entire disposal,
with no restriction or condition of any sort or kind."

She made the announcement in a level tone, and without a smile, but he
detected the triumph and satisfaction underneath; and, feeling much the
stronger for it, he observed gravely that the dead man was a good man.
"And I always knew it, Francie, worse luck!"

"Oh, so did I! Far--far too good for the likes of me. But--well, we
need not talk about that now. We couldn't help ourselves, could we? And
the past is past; everything is different now. Oh, Guthrie, what it is
to kiss you without feeling that I am doing wrong!"

She kissed him as she said it, pressing him to her. Of course he kissed
her back, but his hands on her waist were rigid, as if he wore an
evening shirt, and was afraid of her crushing the front of it. She
might have noticed this if she had not caught a glimpse of herself at
the moment in a mirror behind him.

"One thing," she said, "I did draw the line at. I positively refused to
wear a cap. I knew--I knew you couldn't have borne THAT!" Holding her
charming head, rippled all over with goldenchestnut curls and coils,
just in front of his eyes, she pleaded for confirmation of this
statement. "You couldn't have stood seeing me in a cap, could you,
Guthrie?" "As far as I can judge," he replied, "nobody asks you to wear
caps these days, whether you're a widow or not. Why, the very
grandmothers go about in yellow fringes and things, pretending they are
thirty or forty, when everybody knows they are twice that, at the
least. When I was a youngster, there used to be old ladies--my mother
was one; but the race has died out."

"I, at any rate, am not an old lady," Mrs Ewing remarked, with a joyous
smile. "My yellow fringes and things are all my own, and so is my
complexion, and so are my teeth."

Her smile widened to reveal their pearly excellence. She took his hand,
and rubbed the back of it on her downy cheek, and laid the palm on her
soft, thick locks. Even yet she did not see that anything was the
matter, confident in her still young beauty, and in the fact that he
now knew for certain that the bulk of her hus