necessity of having to "entertain" a friend of Undine's, had yielded to
the first touch on the weak springs of her garrulity. She had not seen
Mrs. Heeny for two days, and this friendly young man with the gentle
manner was almost as easy to talk to as the masseuse. And then she could
tell him things that Mrs. Heeny already knew, and Mrs. Spragg liked
to repeat her stories. To do so gave her almost her sole sense of
permanence among the shifting scenes of life. So that, after she had
lengthily deplored the untoward accident of Undine's absence, and her
visitor, with a smile, and echoes of divers et ondoyant in his brain,
had repeated her daughter's name after her, saying: "It's a wonderful
find--how could you tell it would be such a fit?"--it came to her quite
easily to answer: "Why, we called her after a hair-waver father put on
the market the week she was born--" and then to explain, as he remained
struck and silent: "It's from UNdoolay, you know, the French for
crimping; father always thought the name made it take. He was quite a
scholar, and had the greatest knack for finding names. I remember the
time he invented his Goliath Glue he sat up all night over the Bible to
get the name... No, father didn't start IN as a druggist," she went on,
expanding with the signs of Marvell's interest; "he was educated for an
undertaker, and built up a first-class business; but he was always
a beautiful speaker, and after a while he sorter drifted into the
ministry. Of course it didn't pay him anything like as well, so finally
he opened a drug-store, and he did first-rate at that too, though his
heart was always in the pulpit. But after he made such a success with
his hair-waver he got speculating in land out at Apex, and somehow
everything went--though Mr. Spragg did all he COULD--." Mrs. Spragg,
when she found herself embarked on a long sentence, always ballasted it
by italicizing the last word.

Her husband, she continued, could not, at the time, do much for his