if I've told you anything at all about this pie-faced son of yours that ye didn't already know or suspect, you're welcome to the information. He's a bad egg,—and if ye don't believe me, ask Lady Jane Thorne,—if she happens to be about."
He spoke without thinking, but he did no harm. No one there had the remotest idea who he meant when he referred to Lady Jane Thorne.
"Come, Peggy, we'd better be going," he said to his wife. "If we want a bite o' dinner, I guess we'll have to go over to Healy's and get it."
Far in the night, Mrs. Smith-Parvis groaned. Her husband, who sat beside her bed and held her hand with somnolent devotion, roused himself and inquired if the pain was just as bad as ever.
She groaned again.
He patted her hand soothingly. "There, there, now,—go to sleep again. You'll be all right—"
"Again?" she cried plaintively. "How can you say such a thing? I haven't closed my eyes."
"Oh, my dear," he expostulated. "You've been sound asleep for—"
"I have not!" she exclaimed. "My poor head is splitting. You know I haven't been asleep, so why will you persist in saying that I have?"
"At any rate," said he, taking up a train of thought that had become somewhat confused and unstable by passing through so many cat-naps, "we ought to be thankful it isn't worse. The dear boy might have gone to the electric chair if we had permitted him to follow the scoundrel to the sidewalk."
Mrs. Smith-Parvis turned her face toward him. A
