COMMUTER'S WIFE 147 



and come in turn, instead of leaving the door on 

 the latch for people to walk in sociably when 

 they pleased. No doubt, as he said, people did 

 sometimes go and wait round just out of curiosity 

 to see who was there, and somehow Miss Bache 

 found that Mrs. Dennison had liver trouble that 

 spotted her complexion, and mentioned it in sew- 

 ing society, and her own husband's sister, not 

 knowing she was ailing, felt grieved to hear it 

 from a stranger. 



" But I suppose you still expect to run wild as 

 you did when a girl, never going in the kitchen 

 except when you wanted something, and spending 

 all your time either grubbing in the dirt or reading 

 books that were not at all the thing for young 

 women, I never wasted my time in such idling, 

 or else listening to some impostor's tale over at 

 the hospital, or crying over the funerals of ragged 

 children that were much better dead. I hold three 

 women sheer extravagance, and it's a woman's duty 

 to surprise the kitchen at odd hours; otherwise 

 how find things amiss ? " 



"Not extravagance, Aunt Lot, cooperation, the 

 only way in which twice two make five, and some- 

 times even six or seven; and as to finding things 

 amiss, father always said we find what we look 



