Sometimes, when Statira and 'Manda Grier took a Saturday afternoon off, he went with them into the country on one of the horse-car lines, or else to some matinee at a garden-theatre in the suburbs. Statira liked the theatre better than anything else; and she used to meet other girls whom she knew there, and had a gay time. She introduced Lemuel to them, and after a few moments of high civility and distance they treated him familiarly, as Statira's beau. Their talk, after that he was now used to, was flat and foolish, and their pert ease incensed him. He came away bruised and burning, and feeling himself unfit to breathe the refined and gentle air to which he returned in Mr. Corey's presence. Then he would vow in his heart never to expose himself to such things again; but he could not tell Statira that he despised the friends she was happy with; he could only go with a reluctance it was not easy to hide, and atone by greater tenderness for a manner that wounded her. One day toward the end of August, when they were together at a suburban theatre, Statira wandered off to a pond there was in the grounds with some other girls, who had asked him to go and row them, and had called him a bear for refusing, and told him to look out for Barnum. They left him sitting alone with 'Manda Grier, at a table where they had all been having ice-cream at his expense; and though it was no longer any pleasure to be with her, it was better than to be with them, for she was not a fool, at any rate. Statira turned round at a little distance to mock them with a gesture and a laugh, and the laugh ended in a cough, long and shattering, so that one of her companions had to stop with her, and put her arm round her till she could recover herself and go on. It sent a cold thrill through Lemuel, and then he turned angry. “What is it Statira does to keep taking more cold?” “Oh, I guess 'tain't 'ny _more_ cold,” said 'Manda Grier. “What do you mean?” “I guess 'f you cared a great deal you'd noticed that cough 'f hers before now. 'Tain't done it any too much good workin' in that arsenic paper all summer long.” 'Manda Grier talked with her face turned away from him. It provoked him more and more. “I _do_ care,” he retorted, eager to quarrel, “and you know it. Who got her into the box-factory, I should like to know?” “_I_ did!” said 'Manda Grier, turning sharply on him, “and you _kept_ her there; and between us we've killed her.” “How have I kept her there, I should like to know?” “'F you'd done's she wanted you should, she might 'a' been at some pleasant place in the country--the mount'ns, or somewhere 't she'd been ov'r her cough by this time. But no! You was too nasty proud for that, Lemuel Barker!” A heavy load of guilt dropped upon Lemuel's heart, but he flung it off, and he retorted furiously, “You ought to have been ashamed of yourself to ever want her to take a servant's place.”