spotless affections.

The Baron muttered something in German, and Fontenette shut his mouth
tight and straightened up in approbation.


At the close of the service we were not out of the pew before our escort
was introducing Senda to his friends in front and behind as busily and
elaborately as if that was what we had come for. Twice and again she cast
so anxious an eye upon her husband--from whom Mrs. Fontenette had wisely
taken shelter behind hers--that I softly said to her, "We'll take care of
him."

A care he was! All the way down the aisle, amid the peals of the organ, he
commented on the sermon aloud, mostly to himself but also to whichever of
us he could rub his glasses against. Sometimes he mistook others for us
until they stared. His face showed a piteous, weary distress, his thin
hair went twenty ways, he seemed scarcely to know where he was or how to
take his steps, and presently was saying to a strange lady crowded against
him, as though it was with her he had been talking all along:

"Undt vhy shall we haf t'at owfool troubple? No-o, t'at vould kill me! I
am not a cat to keep me alvays clean--no more as a hogk to keep me always
not clean. No, I keep me--owdside--inside--always so clean as it comes
eassy, undt I leave me so dirty as it comes eassy."



XIII