BURNED TOAST
As for myself, I was impatient for my high moment.
But I think I gave the old folks a good time and that they missed nothing in my manner. And, indeed, I think that they missed nothing in Rosalie's. They had the gentle complacency of the aged who bask in their own content.
It was toward the end of dinner that I caught a look in Rosalie's eyes which almost made my heart stop beating. I had not seen it since Perry's death. I had seen it first when she had stood in the door of his room on the night that I tucked him up in bed and gave him the hot oysters. It was that look of distaste—that delicate shrinking from an unpleasant spectacle.
Following her gaze I saw that the old gentleman had sunk in his chair and was gently nodding. His wife leaned toward me.
"Milton always takes a cat nap after meals," she said, smiling. And I smiled back, she was so rosy and round and altogether comfortable.
Rosalie and I went with them to the train, and it was as we drove back that I spoke of them.
"They are rather great dears, aren't they?"
Rosalie was vehement. "I hate old people!"
A chill struck to my bones. "You hate them? Why?"
"They're—ugly, Jim Crow. Did you see how
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