disposition, and she--why, she just followed him about with them black eyes of hers, and fair worshipped him. She was nigh tickled to death when her girl baby came into the world; yellow-headed like him. She was only like him in color, however, for of all the domineerin’ little hectoring brats I ever saw! Well, as I was saying, Mrs. Worden was the law of this town then, and it was card parties and coach parties and sleigh parties and lake moonlight parties, accordin’ to the time a year, and dinners and suppers and ‘routs’--that’s what they called ’em then, I remember--and people used to come from other places and they’d stay a week at a time, and them weeks was Phil Worden’s picnics, his two-forty-on-a-plank days, I tell you. Now, I never see nobody so dead crazy about theatres as Miss Worden was. Whenever a company came here she had the first box, and every night of her life, unless she gave a ‘rout,’ she was in that old theatre. Yes, I know it, an alley now, and only a few low variety shows go there, and no women ever enters its doors, but then it was, my Suz! it just was a fine theatre. Well, Phil was fond of the show, too, and she was awful proud of that, and it was ‘my Philip is so fond of the play,’ and ‘Mr. Worden will be at the theatre whether or no--’ Poor soul! it was so seldom they liked the same things, but Lord! even then she was deceivin’ herself. He didn’t care for no play; he just went for them dances they used to have between the acts, and the slack wire performers and that like; but he knew every man and woman behind the scenes, and knocked about with them in the daytime, and I don’t mean no slurs against you two girls now, but in them days actors was a rather common lot. The men nearly all drank too much, and, what’s worse, some of the women did, too; and well, one crowd came here for a long stay, and Phil Worden was just cock of the walk with them, and before long there was talk about one special female. She wasn’t even a leadin’ actor among ’em, just a brazen hussy who put paint an inch thick on her cheeks and daubed her mouth with a dye thing they called ‘vinegar rouge,’ because it wouldn’t come off easy, and she was poorer than Job, and all at once she had beaver bonnets and velvet pelisses and feathers and long gloves and a muff big enough for a bass drum. And because the woman was drunk oftener and oftener, and in her cups was a noisy and quarrelsome jade who would fight her best friend, and talked everything right out, all Cleveland began to wink and nod and say Phil Worden. Well, of course, Myra must have suspected, but never one cross word did she give him, nor show him the frown mother said she had on pretty often them days when he was away. But, one day, in he comes, near supper-time--even Mrs. Worden took her dinner at two o’clock them times, and people said it was all airs to have dinner so sinful late. Well, in he comes, all bunged up, a sight to see! His eye was all swelled up, and there was