yes streamin',
instead of comfortin' her, he tells her she ought to have better sense,
and why didn't she go to sleep and not worry, that he was of age and
could take care of himself--when all the time she is only lovin' him
and pretty near out of her mind lest he gets hurted. And last he gets to
lyin' as to where he HAS been--maybe it's the lodge, or a game in a back
room, or somethin' ye can't talk about--anyhow, he lies about it, and
then she finds it out, and everything comes tumblin' down together, and
the pieces are all over the floor. That runs on for a while, and
pretty soon in comes a dandy-lookin' chap and tells her she's an abused
woman--and she HAS been--and he begins pickin' up the scraps and piecin'
them together, tellin' her all the time the pretty things the first man
told her and which, fool-like, she believes over agin, and then one
fine day she skips off and the husband goes round, tearin' his hair with
shame or shakin' his fist with rage, and says she broke up his home, and
if she ever sets foot on his doorstep again he'll set the dogs on her,
or let her starve before he'd give her a crumb. Don't it make you laugh?
It does me. And you should see 'em swell round and air their troubles
when most everybody knows just what's happened from the beginnin'! If it
was any of my business, I'd let out and tell 'em so.

"What my John knows, I know; and what I know, he knows. There's never
been a time, and there ain't one now, when I'm beat out and my bones are
hangin' stiff in me--and I get that way sometimes even now--that I don't
go to John and say, 'John, dear, get yer arms around me and hold me
tight, I'm that tired,' and down goes everything, and he's got my head
on his shoulder and pattin' my cheeks, and up I get all made over new,
and him too. That's the way we get on, and that's the way they all ought
to get on if--"

She paused, stretching her neck as if for more air.

"God save me! Will ye hear me run on? And ye sittin' there drinkin' it
all in, not known' a word about the women and carin' less. Ye've got to
forgive me, for I'm like John's alarm-clock in this wife business, and
when I'm wound up I keep strikin' until I run down. Whew! What a heat I
got myself into! Now go on, Mr. O'Day. What'll I pay him, and when's he
comin?"

Felix waved his hand deprecatingly. "And so you never think, Mistress
Kitty, that it may be the woman's fault?"

"Yes, sometimes it is. Faults on both sides, maybe. If it's