"I haven't seen the miserable loafer in months," she said. Her voice
was heavy, not unlike that of a man. For some reason she shuffled
uneasily in her chair. The book dropped into her capacious lap.

"You've been doing something behind my back, you sly minx," he chided.
"What do you think happened to-day?"

"To Eddie Ten Eyck?"

"In a way, yes. He came up to me in the Club and asked my permission
to pay--er--court to you, my dear. He said he loved you better than--
Hey! Look out there! What the dev--Hi, Mother! Come here quick! Good
Heaven, she's going to die!"

Poor Martha had collapsed in a heap, her arms dangling limply over the
side of the chair, her eyes bulging and blinking in a most grotesque
manner. At first glance one would have sworn she was strangling.
Afterwards the General denounced himself as an unmitigated idiot for
having given her such a shock. He ought to have known better.

Mrs. Gamble rushed downstairs in great alarm, and it was not long
before they had Martha breathing naturally, although the General
almost made that an impossibility by the ruthless manner in which he
fanned her with the very book she had been reading--a heavy volume
which he neglected to open.

The whirligig room reduced itself to a library for Martha once more,
not so monotonous as it once had been, no doubt, but still a library.
Out of the turmoil of her own emotions, she managed to grasp enough of