-pshaw!"

"You do know I'm not, don't you? Tell me again you do know."

"I do. Do."

"And you'll always protect me against anyone saying it? They'll believe
you, Henry, not me. Promise me to protect me against them, Henry.
Promise to protect me against our little Ann Elizabeth ever thinking
that of--of her mother."

"Why, Emmy!" he said. "Why, Emmy! I just promise a thousand times--" and
could not go on, working his mouth rather foolishly as if he had not
teeth and were rubbing empty gums together.

But through her hot gaze of tears she saw and understood and, satisfied,
rubbed her cheek against his arm.

The rest is cataclysmic.

Returning home one evening in a nice glow from a January out-of-doors,
his mustache glistening with little frozen drops and his hands (he never
wore gloves) unbending of cold, Mrs. Jett rose at her husband's entrance
from her low chair beside the lamp.

"Well, well!" he said, exhaling heartily, the scent of violet denying
the pungency of fish and the pungency of fish denying the scent of
violet. "How's the busy bee this evening?"

For answer Mrs. Jett met him with the crescendo yell of a gale sweeping
around a chimney.

"Ya-a-ah! Keep out--you! Fish! Fish!" she cried, springing toward him;
and in the struggle that ensued the tubing wrenched off the gas lamp and
plunged them into darkness. "Fish! I'll fix you! Ya-a-ah!"

"Emmy! For God's sake, it's Henry! Em!"

"Ya-a-ah! I'll fix you! Fish! Fish!"

* * * * *

Two days later Ann Elizabeth was born, beautiful, but premature by two
weeks.

Emma Jett died holding her tight against her newly rich breasts, for a
few of the most precious and most fleeting moments of her life.

All her absurd fears washed away, her free hand could lie without spasm
in Henry's, and it was as if she found in her last words a secret
euphony that delighted her.

"Ann-Elizabeth. Sweet-beautiful. Ann-Elizabeth. Sweet-beautiful."

Later in his bewildered and almost ludicrous widowerhood tears would
sometimes galumph down on his daughter's face as Henry rocked her of
evenings and Sunday mornings.

"Sweet-beautiful," came so absurdly from under his swiftly graying
mustache, but often, when sure he was quite alone, he would say it over
and over again.

"Sweet-beautiful. Ann-Elizabeth. Sweet-beautiful. Ann-Elizabeth."

* * * * *

Of course the years puttied in and healed and softened, until