Doc Bradley looked sharply at Myra when she let him out. Perhaps he noted the pathos of that thin face; those speaking eyes, that seemed to confess a secret longing. "If you should feel the call, just break a few dishes on your own account!" he advised her. "I like to see folks get what they want. If they want it bad enough, they'll get it." He thought it might be a dress, perhaps--something pretty. Women in Myry's case have odd notions. Myry had an odd notion. She wanted to be told that she was beautiful and loved. "You little black stringy thing!" she told herself fiercely. "He's fond of you. And good to you. He's like his pa; he won't show it common. And anyways--you beautiful!" But every month she read, with a new and avid interest, those far-fetched, extravagant tales of beautiful and beloved women. During the remainder of Nell's stay, old Mrs. Bray and Myra felt a certain delicacy about inaugurating the use of the white cloths, the wedding china, and the pretty bits on the safe-shelf. But when the Peebles's visit was over, the table achieved a patterned whiteness and a general festive appearance. Old Mrs. Bray donned the gray-and-lavender every afternoon, and Myra bloomed out in pink print. She scarcely ever went abroad now, but for all that, her world was infinitely widened. Once Marvin, dangling from two spread fingers a tiny yoke, inquired doubtfully, "Do you think it's big enough to go round his neck?" He was always urging her to have help in, and not to tire herself out. But curiously, he never noted the pink print any more than if it had been dull slate. That had not been his pa's way; and it was not his way. But he was good to her. What more could a woman ask? After Nell came, he felt aggrieved--quite useless and in the way. The women were always displaying things--digging them out from the bottoms of drawers--clouds of soft, white things, with here and there a rift of color in tassel or tufting. There came a night when he sat alone. In the beginning, he had tried to read--he picked up her woman's magazine, eyeing it curiously, that these silly, floppy sheets should hold, as they did, women's eyes. There were pictures in it--always pictures--pictured embraces, with words beneath. "How beautiful you are! I love you--I love you! How beautiful you are!" Always harping on the same thing--love and beauty. As if life were a sentimental thing like that! He flung it down. How could he stay his mind on such stuff, when Myry--when Myry-- Nell, important and managerial, occasionally came out and elbowed him about in some mysterious search. At such times, old Mrs. Bray, done up for the night in a highly flowered and mantle-like garment, came creeping inquiringly in. "Now, Nell--you know what Myry told ye--if you was to fergit now--" "All right, Mother. I won't forget." "You know where to find 'em--" "Yes, I know where to find 'em." "Now, Nell, I promised Myry--"