She found, however, that the task of comforting her was an impossible one. All she could do was to soothe and speak lovingly to her, and to avoid abuse of her husband; she felt it would be the cause of hopeless estrangement between them, if she allowed herself to express her true opinion of him. At last, when Mrs. Leith had consented to be covered up, and made physically comfortable, and had drunk a cup of tea, Mrs. Bryan left her to try to get a nap. She had Fleecy in her arms, with her head peeping out above the coverlet, and had laid her cheek against it with a degree of affectionateness that she seemed unable to show to the human beings about her. “It is only because Bertie loves Fleecy, and she loves him,” said the little creature, answering the unspoken thought which she had read in Mrs. Bryan’s eyes. As the latter passed through the outer room, where Mauma was sitting at the window running the narrow ribbons in and out of the eyelet holes in Mrs. Leith’s dainty French underclothes, she stopped and looked at the old woman inquiringly. “She bin tell you all ’bout it, has she?” said Mauma, looking up over the top of her brass-rimmed spectacles. “I knowed how it gwine be, soon ez I see you done tech her heart, by nussing o’ that black varmint.” (It always seemed to give Mauma great satisfaction to apply the word “black” to Fleecy’s creamy whiteness.) “I’m glad you kin mek out to show some likin’ fur de dirty thing, en to please Missy I’d do it myself, ef I could. De Lord knows ef anythin’ kin please her, I want her to have it, but it’s more’n I got sense to do, to ack like I love dem two darlin’s o’ hern.” “Then you don’t like Mr. Leith, either?” said Mrs. Bryan, tentatively.