hag."

"Elizabeth!"

"I did."

"Have you apologized?"

"Yes," said Elizabeth; "but what's the good of 'pologizing? _I
said it._ 'Course I 'pologized; and I kissed her muddy rubbers
when she wasn't looking; and I gave her all my money for a new
feather"--she stopped, and sighed deeply; "and here is the money
you gave me to go to the theater. So now I haven't any money at
all, in the world."

Poor Robert Ferguson, with a despairing jerk at the black ribbon
of his glasses, leaned back in his chair, helpless with
perplexity. Why on earth did she give him back his money? He
could not follow her mental processes. He said as much to Mrs.
Richie the next time he went to see her. He went to see her quite
often in those days. For the convenience of David and Elizabeth,
a doorway had been cut in the brick wall between the two gardens,
and Mr. Ferguson used it frequently. In their five or six years
of living next door to each other the acquaintance of these two
neighbors had deepened into a sort of tentative intimacy, which
they never quite thought of as friendship, but which permitted
many confidences about their two children.

And when they talked about their children, they spoke, of course,
of the other two, for one could not think of David without