to sit through a dinner. It isn't one of those ravenous recoveries. It
went too far with him for that."

"His mother was perfectly magnificent through it all, they say."

"Have you seen much of Mrs. Bogardus?"

"No; we left them alone, poor things, when the pinch came. But I used to
see her walking the porch, up and down, up and down. Moya would go off on
the hills. They couldn't walk together! That was after Miss Chrissy went
home. Her mother took her back, you know, and then returned alone.
Perfectly heroic! They say she dressed every evening for dinner as
carefully as if she were in New York, and led the conversation. She used
to make Moya read aloud to her--history, novels--anything to pretend they
were not thinking. The strain must have begun before any of us knew. The
colonel kept it so quiet. What is the dear man doing with your bonnet?"

The colonel had plucked his sister's walking-hat, a pert piece of
millinery froward in feathers, from the trunk of the headless Victory,
where she had reposed it in her haste before dinner.

"Mustn't be disrespectful to the household Lar," he kindly reminded her.

"Where am I to put my hats, then? I shall wear them on my head and come
down to breakfast in them. Moya, dear, will you please rescue my hat? Put
it anywhere, dear,--under your chair. There is not really a place in this
house to put a thing. A wedding that goes off on time is bad enough, but
one that hangs on from month to month--and doesn't even take care of its
clothes! Forgive me, dear! The clothes are very pretty. I open a
bureau-drawer to put away my middle-aged bonnet--a puff of violets! A pile