comprehend it and partook of it only as a spectator. They had known
but one actual altercation in their lives, and that was thirty years
past, in the early days of Sheridan's struggle, when, in order to
enhance the favorable impression he believed himself to be making upon
some capitalists, he had thought it necessary to accompany them to a
performance of "The Black Crook." But she had not once referred to
this during the last ten years.

Mrs. Sheridan's manner was hurried and inconsequent; her clothes
rustled more than other women's clothes; she seemed to wear too many
at a time and to be vaguely troubled by them, and she was patting
a skirt down over some unruly internal dissension at the moment she
opened Bibbs's door.

At sight of the recumbent figure she began to close the door softly,
withdrawing, but the young man had heard the turning of the knob and
the rustling of skirts, and he opened his eyes.

"Don't go, mother," he said. "I'm not asleep." He swung his long
legs over the side of the bed to rise, but she set a hand on his
shoulder, restraining him; and he lay flat again.

"No," she said, bending over to kiss his cheek, "I just come for
a minute, but I want to see how you seem. Edith said--"

"Poor Edith!" he murmured. "She couldn't look at me. She--"

"Nonsense!" Mrs. Sheridan, having let in the light at a window, came
back to the bedside. "You look a great deal better than what you did
before you went to the sanitarium, anyway. It's done you good; a body