"What did you promise Myry?" Marvin flared in sudden jealousy. Both women eyed him, as from a great and unattainable height. Then Nell's capable back disappeared beyond Myry's door; and his mother's little old grotesque and woolly figure was swallowed up by the black hall. Again he took up the magazine. Again looked at the picture. Again, scarcely seeing them, he read the words. Again he sat; and again Nell elbowed him importantly, and his mother in her snail-like wrappings, came creeping in to remind Nell-- When Doc Bradley came out, at first he thought the man, sprawled loosely in the chair, must be asleep--till he lifted his eyes. They were sleepless and inflamed like a watch-dog's. "Hold on! Wait a minute! Nell's boss now. You don't want to go in looking that way--you'd skeer 'im!" "What'll I say?" inquired Marvin hoarsely; "Myry's a good woman--she 's been a good wife to me--too good--" "Tell 'er something she don't know! Say something fond-like and foolish." "You can come in now," granted the lofty Nell. Somehow, old Mrs. Bray had preceded him. But he never saw her. He never even saw the managerial Nell. He saw his wife's face, looking so little and white from out a ruffled lace cap. There were circles of ruffles about her thin wrists. There was a lace ruffle in the neck of her gown. For these were Myry's coronation robes; it was about this adorning that old Mrs. Bray had continuously cautioned Nell. Nell, in that smug, proprietary manner of hers, had turned back a blanket--enough to show the tiny yoke which he had dangled, and the neck which it encircled, and the red and wrinkly head on top of that--- Like a well-conned article of catechism, words came to Marvin--words he could never have got from his pa. "Oh, Myry--I love you! How beautiful you are!" A strange cosmetic glowed on Myra's white cheek. Happiness is the surest beautifier. He might never say it again. It was not likely that he would. He favored his pa. But she had had her great moment--her beautiful and beloved moment. She smiled drowsily up at old Mrs. Bray, beaming beneficently above; and remembered, in an odd flash, the pink china cup. This was her cup--full and running over. "Come on out now, and let her sleep," ordered the dictatorial Nell. "Who'd a' thought, now, Myry had her little vanities? That lace cap now, and them ruffles--for Marvin! Some folks has the strangest notions." "'Tain't notions!" protested old Mrs. Bray. "Oh, yes, it is! And all right, if you feel that way--like you and your dishes, now." "Myry and me both is powerful set on dishes," exulted old Mrs. Bray. THE BLOOD-RED ONE[8] [Note 8: Copyright, 1918, by Charles Scribner's Sons.] BY MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT From _Scribner's Magazine_