“Don’t dress for church. This is a good day to make that trip to Passaic.” “We’ll go by Miss Ryper’s for Margot,” said I. “How the old people will stare when they see her!” Edna looked at me as if I had suddenly uncovered unmistakable evidence of my insanity. Then I who had clean forgot her foolish notions remembered. “But why not?” I urged. “It will give them so much pleasure.” “Trash!” ejaculated she. “They don’t care a rap about her. They can’t, as they’ve not seen her since she was a baby. And Margot would suffer horribly. I think it would be wicked to give a sweet, happy young girl a horrible shock.” This grotesque view of the effect of the sight of grandparents upon a grandchild struck me as amusing. But there was no echo of my laughter in the disgusted face of my wife. I sobered and said: “Yes, it would give her a shock. We’ve made a mistake, bringing her up in that way.” “Too late to discuss it now,” said Edna. “I suppose so,” I could not but agree. “I guess the mischief’s done beyond repair.” Said Edna: “Have you any sense of--of them being _your_ father and mother?” “Rather,” said I. “My childhood is very vivid to me, and not at all disagreeable.” “It seems to me like a bad dream--unreal, and to be forgotten as quickly as I can.” She said this with a fine, spiritual look in her eyes, and I must say that Edna, refined, delicately beautiful, fashionably dressed, speaking her English with an elegant accent, did not suggest fusty-dusty, queer-looking Weeping Willie with his hearse and funeral coaches, his embalming apparatus and general appearance of animated casket, nor yet fat, sloppy Ma Wheatlands, always in faded wrappers and with holes cut in her shoes for her bunions. “Wear your oldest business suit,” said Edna, coming back to earth from the contemplation of her own elevation and grandeur. “I shall dress as quietly as I dare. We mustn’t arouse the suspicions of the servants.” Edna’s fooleries amused me. I didn’t then appreciate the dangers of tolerating and laughing at the bad habits of a fascinating child. If I had, little good I’d have accomplished, I suspect. However, I got myself up as Edna directed, and when I saw how it irritated her I stopped making such remarks as: “Shall I wear a collar? Hadn’t I better sneak out the back way and join you at the ferry?” I should have liked to get some fun out of our doings; that would have taken at least the saw edge off my feelings of self-contempt. I am not fond of hypocrisy, yet for that one occasion I should have welcomed the familiar human shamming and faking in such matters. But Edna would put the thing through like one of her father’s funerals. As we, in what was practically disguise, issued forth, she said loudly enough for the cocking ear of a maid who chanced to be in the front hall: “Anyhow, the country dust won’t spoil these clothes. I’m so glad it’s clear. How charming the woods will look.”