Just enough to deceive. Edna expanded upon her cleverness in never saying too much, because saying too much always started people, especially servants, to thinking. But she abruptly checked her flow of self-praise as we seated ourselves in the ferry and she looked about. There, not a dozen seats away, loomed our cook! Yes, no mistake, it was our Mary, “gotten up regardless” for a Sunday outing. “Do you see Mary?” said my wife. “She’s the most conspicuous female in sight,” said I. “She’s a credit to us.” “I must have been mad,” groaned Edna, “to give her a holiday! Always the way. I never do a generous, kind-hearted thing that I don’t have to pay for it.” “I don’t follow you,” said I. “She hates us,” explained Edna. “Cooks--Irish cooks--invariably hate the families they draw wages from. She’s dogging us.” “Nonsense,” said I. “She probably hasn’t even seen us.” But Edna was not listening; she was contriving. “We must let her leave the boat ahead of us. Pretend not to see her.” I obeyed orders. In the Jersey City train shed we, lagging behind, saw her take a train bound for a different destination from ours. Much relieved, Edna led the way to the Passaic train. Hardly were we seated when in at the door of the coach hurried our Mary, excited and blown. She came beaming down the aisle. Edna saluted her graciously and calmly. “I got in the wrong train,” said Mary. “It’d never have took me nowheres near my cousin in Passaic.” Edna’s composure was admirable. Said I, when Mary had passed on, “Now what, my dear?” “You see she _is_ dogging us,” replied Edna. “I’ve not a doubt she knows all about us.” “I don’t _think_ she’s got a camera,” said I. “Still, they make them very small nowadays.” “We shall have to go on in the train, and return home from the station beyond,” said Edna. “Do as you like,” said I. “But as for me, I get off at Passaic and go to see the old folks.” “Please stop your joking,” said Edna. “If you had any pride you couldn’t joke.” “I am serious,” said I. “I shall go to see mother and father.” “No doubt her cousin lives in the same part of the slums,” said Edna. “Oh, it is _hideous_!” I don’t know what possessed me--whether a fit of indigestion and obstinacy or a sudden access of sense of decency as I approached my old home. Whatever it was, it moved me to say: “My dear, this nonsense has gone far enough. We will do what we set out to do.” “Not I,” said Edna. “Then I’ll drop off at Passaic alone, and hire a trap, and give Mary a seat in it as far as her cousin’s. I’m not proud of my parents, the more shame to me. But there’s a limit to my ability to degrade myself.”