know, dear," answered the small Cecilia, "but you shouldn't. It is too much. You have made me very happy."  She turned away. There was a sudden smarting beneath her eyelids.... She hated the school that had taught her a quiet manner, and to see blue glass butter dishes as a visitation rather than a glory. 

 "That ain't all!" said Jeremiah. He took hold of her arm, and led her to the other side of the room.  "Throw on the lights, Johnny!" he called loudly. Cecilia felt him tremble. The lights snapped on with a too white glare. Jeremiah and Cecilia stood before a picture over which was thrown a cloth. Jeremiah drew it aside. 

 "It was did from a tintype," said Jeremiah softly. He looked on the face of his Irish wife. Her lips were painted a brazen carmine. Her cheeks glowed like the stage ladies' of the billboards. Around her neck were three ropes of huge pearls. 

 "He threw in the pearls," explained Jeremiah in a voice that shook a little, "an' fancied her up some, but them eyes,—it's your maw, Celie. Your maw that died in a two-room flat."  With the last words Jeremiah had turned away. His shoulders had a limp droop. The happiness of the evening had faded. 

 "What's in this box?" asked Cecilia, unsteadily. It was a hat box and stood beneath the new portrait. 

 "Her present," answered Jeremiah.  "The present I give her. Look at it, Celie. Ain't it pretty? I picked it." 

 Cecilia opened the box. She drew out a large, flopping hat. It was trimmed with pink roses. 

 The next day when Father McGowan was all ready to start for the Madden house, there was commotion in the wilds of Sieberia. It had been reported the day before that one of the "guys" had smoked a Piedmont, and Father McGowan, finding this so, had had to dust him mildly with a hickory cane, hung on the back porch for that purpose. 

 He disliked doing this, and smoked for a good hour afterward to soothe his nerves. Mrs. Fry had watched the chastising with pleased eyes, but then, on going to the bathroom, all happiness had vanished, for one of them reptiles had crawled out of the tub. She had dropped her scrubbing cloths, and disappeared screaming. 

 Father McGowan had been all ready to start. He had found his hat (which had the most mysterious way of disappearing), and with an ashamed expression, he'd put a small box in his pocket. 

 

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