"What about you?" interrupted Mr. Vertrees, turning sharply upon
his wife.

She made a little face as if positive now that what she had eaten
would not agree with her. "I couldn't!" she said. "I--"

"Yes, that's just--just the way she--she looked when they asked her!"
cried Mary, choking. "And then she--she realized it, and tried to
turn it into a cough, and she didn't know how, and it sounded like
--like a squeal!"

"I suppose," said Mrs. Vertrees, much injured, "that Mary will have
an uproarious time at my funeral. She makes fun of--"

Mary jumped up instantly and kissed her; then she went to the mantel
and, leaning an elbow upon it, gazed thoughtfully at the buckle of
her shoe, twinkling in the firelight.

"THEY didn't notice anything," she said. "So far as they were
concerned, mamma, it was one of the finest coughs you ever coughed."

"Who were 'they'?" asked her father. "Whom did you see?"

"Only the mother and daughter," Mary answered. "Mrs. Sheridan is
dumpy and rustly; and Miss Sheridan is pretty and pushing--dresses by
the fashion magazines and talks about New York people that have their
pictures in 'em. She tutors the mother, but not very successfully--
partly because her own foundation is too flimsy and partly because
she began too late. They've got an enormous Moor of painted plaster