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She cherished the delusion that he was i flesh under her ministrations, and there was a sort of jealousy in her care for hiht to sit proudly behind one of her heavy, tasteless pies, and say: "Now I made this for you, Willy, because I know country boys like pies Just see if that crust isn't nice"

"You don't mean to say you made it!"

"I certainly did" And to please her he would clear his plate He rather ran to digestive tablets those days, and Edith, surprising hi, accused him roundly of hypocrisy

"I don't knohy you stay anyhow," she said, staring into the yard where Jinx was burying a bone in the heliotrope bed "The food's awful I', Edith"

"I'ot to tie you up with us, anyhow? We're a poor lot You're not comfortable and you know it D'you knohere she is now?"

"She" in the vernacular of the house, was always Mrs Boyd

"She forgot toit now"

He ran up the stairs, and forcibly putting Mrs Boyd in a chair, made up his own bed, aardly and with an eye on her chest, which rose and fell alarly It was after that that he warned Edith

"She's not strong," he said "She needs care and--well, to be happy That's up to the three of us For one thing, shepaper bags; she goes white every ti, and Willy dried the supper dishes for Edith She was silent andfor me, Willy You needn't look so shocked She loves Dan and you, but not me I don't mind, you know She doesn't know it, but I do"

"She is very proud of you"

"That's different You're right, though Pride's her middle name It nearly killed her at first to take a roohbors will say That's why she hates me sometimes"

"I wish you wouldn't talk that way"

"But it's true That fool Hodge woman at the corner came here one day last winter and filled her up with a lot of talk about me, and she's been queer to me ever since"