"She never thinks of anything else these days," he retorted. "Rides with him every evening in his pe-rin-sley hired machine, doesn't she?" "Really, you should be more careful about the way you handle a spoon, Hedrick," said Cora languidly, and with at least a foundation of fact. "It is not the proper implement for decorating the cheeks. We all need nourishment, but it is _so_ difficult when one sees a deposit of breakfast-food in the ear of one's vis-a-vis." Hedrick too impulsively felt of his ears and was but the worse stung to find them immaculate and the latter half of the indictment unjustified. "Spoon!" he cried. "I wouldn't talk about spoons if I were you, Cora-lee! After what I saw in the library the other night, believe _me_, you're the one of this family that better be careful how you `handle a spoon'!" Cora had a moment of panic. She let the cup she was lifting drop noisily upon its saucer, and gazed whitely at the boy, her mouth opening wide. "Oh, no!" he went on, with a dreadful laugh. "I didn't hear you asking this Corliss to kiss you! Oh, no!" At this, though her mother and Laura both started, a faint, odd relief showed itself in Cora's expression. She recovered herself. "You little liar!" she flashed, and, with a single quick look at her mother, as of one too proud to appeal, left the room. "Hedrick, Hedrick, Hedrick!" wailed Mrs. Madison. "And she told me you drove her from the table last night too, right before Miss Peirce!" Miss Peirce was the nurse, fortunately at this moment in the sick-room. "I _did_ hear her ask him that," he insisted, sullenly. "Don't you believe it?" "Certainly not!" Burning with outrage, he also left his meal unfinished and departed in high dignity. He passed through the kitchen, however, on his way out of the house; but, finding an unusual politeness to the cook nothing except its own reward, went on his way with a bitter perception of the emptiness of the world and other places.