the occasion she had changed her
dress; a string of green-glass beads, encircling her plump white neck,
glimmered through the starched freshness of an incredibly frank blouse,
and her white duck skirt was spotless. Her whole little fat body was as
fresh and sweet as one of her own hyacinths, and her kind face had the
unchanging, unhuman youthfulness of flesh and blood which has never been
harried by the indwelling soul. But she was frowning. She had begun to
be nervous; Jacky had been away nearly two hours! "Are they playing a
gum game on me?" Lily thought; "Are they going to try and kidnap him?"
It was then that she caught sight of Jacky, tearing toward home, his
fierce blue eyes raking the street for any of them there Dennett boys,
who must have the tar licked out of 'em! Edith was following him, in
hurrying anxiety. Instantly Lily was reassured. "One of Mrs. Curtis's
lady friends, I suppose," she thought. "Well, it's up to me to keep her
guessing on Jacky!" She was very polite and simpering when, at the gate,
Edith said that Mr. Curtis asked her to bring Jacky home.

"Won't you come in and be seated?" Lily urged, hospitably.

Edith said no; she was sorry; but she must go right back; "Mrs. Curtis
is very ill, I am sorry to say."

At this moment Jacky came out to the gate; he had two cookies in his
hand. He said, shyly: "Maw's is better 'an yours. You can have"--this
with a real effort--"the _big_ one."

Edith took the "big one," pleasantly, and said, "Yes, they are nicer
than ours, Jacky."

But Lily was mortified. "The lady'll think you have no manners. Go on
back into the house!"

"Won't," said Jacky, eating his cooky.

His mother tried to cover his obstinacy with conversation: "He's crazy
about Mr. Curtis. Well, no wonder. Mr. Curtis was a great friend of my
husband's. Mr. Dale--his name was Augustus; I named Jacky after him;
Ernest Augustus. He died three years ago; no, I guess it was two--"

"Huh?" said Jacky, interested, "You said my paw died--"

Lily, with that desire to smack her son which every mother knows, cut
his puzzled arithmetic short. "Yes. Mr. Dale was a great clubman. In
Philadelphia. I believe that's where he and Mr. Curtis got to be chums.
But I never met _her_."

Edith said, rigidly, "Really?"

"Jacky's the image of Mr. Dale. He died of--of typhus fever. Mr. Curtis
was one of the pallbearers; that's how I got acquainted with him. Jacky
was six then," Lily ended, breathlessly. ("I guess