"There isn't a sound from that direction, not a sound. I've sat at my window and listened and listened." Mrs. Lister began to cry. "But, mother! This is a grown man, this is not a child!" "He is a child in his father's house. He owes us respect if he's fifty years old." Mrs. Lister crossed the room and looked out between the slats of the bowed shutter across the shimmering campus. "There are thunderheads above the trees and"--her voice took on a tragic tone--"Mrs. Scott is coming!" Dr. Lister rose from the couch where he had been napping. "Shan't I excuse you? It's too hot to see any one, least of all, Mrs. Scott." "No. Richard might be there. Something might have happened to him and she is coming to tell us!" "Nothing has happened to him, my dear." Mrs. Lister met Mrs. Scott at the door. The heat which smote her face as she opened it was so great that she urged her guest to come quickly into the cool parlor. Surely Mrs. Scott would not have ventured out unless she had some special purpose! Perhaps she had come to speak about Richard's behavior to Cora! The idea was fantastic, but it seemed to Mrs. Lister in her alarm perfectly reasonable. Or she might pretend to know nothing about it, yet make Mrs. Lister the most miserable of human beings. Mrs. Scott agreed that it was hot, but she did not continue to dwell upon the weather or allow Mrs. Lister to dwell upon it. Even to Dr. Lister, sitting across in his study in a position from which he could see neither of the two ladies or be seen by them, it was plain that she had come upon business of importance. He pictured them both, Mary Alcestis, large, benign, gentle, and slow of speech, Mrs. Scott, small, eager, ferret-like. He heard the two opening sentences, Mrs. Lister's pleasant compliment to Mrs. Scott's energy, Mrs. Scott's answering boast that the heat could not "throw her out of her stride." Her voice then went on and on. It was confidential and pleasant enough in tone and Dr. Lister could not understand a word, but he was certain that she was worrying Mrs. Lister. It was undoubtedly wrong and un-Christian, but he hated her. He rose, intending to cross the hall and relieve Mary Alcestis of some of the burden of conversation. Then he stood still by his desk. The softly murmuring voice rose to a tone approximating that in which Mrs. Scott addressed her family. "I thought you would want to know it, Mrs. Lister. I thought you ought to know it." "I didn't understand exactly what you said." "I said that your Richard had been visiting morning, noon, and night, since Commencement, Eleanor Bent," repeated Mrs. Scott. "I said that people thought it very strange that Dr. Lister's son should devote his time to her. He plays duets with her on a beautiful new piano that dear knows where she got, and her mother sits by watching them. I guess she has her own intentions. The piano must have cost a thousand dollars." Promptly and smoothly came Mrs. Lister's answer.