afflictions, he had an eye, he used to boast, for but one woman in the
world, and she, thank God, was his wife. Handsome, portly, full-blooded,
and slightly overfed, he had let Pussy twine him about her little finger
ever since the afternoon when he had first seen her, small, trim, and
with "a way with her," at the age of six.

"Poor, poor child," said Pussy, cuddling Jane and the baby together
against her sympathetic bosom. "Something must be done, Cousin Fanny.
Something must be done, as Mr. Wrenn said on the way down, if it's only
for the satisfaction of letting Charley know what we think of him."

"We've got to put down our pride and take some step," declared Jimmy,
wondering vaguely how he could have forgotten the spirited utterance his
wife attributed to him. "I'm all for the authority of the husband, of
course, and the sanctity of the home, and everything according to the
Bible and all that--but, bless my soul, there's got to be a limit to
what a woman is expected to stand. There're some things, and I know
Uncle Meriweather will agree with me, that it isn't in human nature to
put up with."

"If I were forty years younger I'd call him out and give him a whipping
he wouldn't forget in a jiffy," blustered Uncle Meriweather, feebly
violent. "There's no way of defending a lady in these Godforsaken days.
Why, I remember when I was a boy, my poor father--God bless him!--you
recollect him, don't you Fanny?--never used a walking stick in his life
and could read print without glasses at ninety--"

"Making love to the dressmaker," pursued Jimmy, whose righteous anger
refused to be turned aside from its end.