her throat, but one end was unfastened. She wore cotton gloves, with
holes in them.

"Good mornin'," said the captain.

The woman said "Good morning." There was no "r" in the "morning" so,
remembering what he had heard concerning Mrs. Isaac Berry's rearing,
Kendrick decided that this must be she.

"This is Mrs. Berry, isn't it?" he inquired.

"Yes." The lady's tone was not too gracious, in fact there was a trace
of suspicion in it, as if she was expecting the man on the step to
produce a patent egg-beater or the specimen volume of a set of
encyclopedias.

"How do you do, Mrs. Berry," went on the captain. "My name is Kendrick.
I'm your neighbor next door, and Judge Knowles asked me to be neighborly
and cruise over and call some day. So I--er--so I've cruised, you see."

Mrs. Berry's expression changed. She seemed surprised, perhaps a little
annoyed, certainly very much confused.

"Why--why, yes, Mr. Kendrick," she stammered. "I'm so glad you did.... I
am so glad to see you.... Ah--ah---- Won't you come in?"

Captain Sears entered the dark front hall. It smelt like most front
halls of that day in that town, a combination smell made up of
sandal-wood and Brussels carpet and haircloth and camphor and damp
shut-up-ness.

"Walk right in, do," urged Mrs. Berry, opening the parlor door. The
captain walked right in. The parlor was high-studded and square-pianoed
and chromoed and oil-portraited and black-walnutted and marble-topped
and hairclothed. Also it had the fullest and most satisfying assortment
of whatnot curios and alum baskets and whale ivory and shell frames and
wax fruit and pampas grass. There was a majestic black stove and window
lambrequins. Which is to say that it was a very fine specimen of a very
best parlor.

"Do sit down, Mr. Kendrick," gushed Mrs. Berry, moving about a good deal
but not, apparently, accomplishing very much. There had been a feather
duster on the piano when they entered, but it, somehow or other, had
disappeared beneath the piano scarf--partially disappeared, that is, for
one end still protruded. The lady's cotton dusting-gloves no longer
protected her hands but now peeped coyly from behind a jig-sawed
photograph frame on the marble mantelpiece. The apron she had worn lay
on the floor in the shadow of the table cloth. These habiliments of
menial domesticity slid, one by one, out of sight--or partially so--as
she bustled and chatted. When, after a moment, she raised a window shade