Thus robed in state she descended to the supper-table, there to
confront her husband still more miserable in the stiff collar and black
coat.
Nor yet was this all. Neither the work nor the black silk dress
contained for Mrs. Kelsey quite the possibilities of soul torture that
were to be found in the words that fell from her lips. As the days
passed, the task the little woman had set for herself became more and
more hopeless, until she scarcely could bring herself to speak at all,
so stumbling and halting were her sentences.
At the end of the eighth day came the culmination of it all. Alma, her
nose sniffing the air, ran into the kitchen that night to find no one in
the room, and the biscuits burning in the oven. She removed the
biscuits, threw wide the doors and windows, then hurried upstairs to her
mother's room.
"Why, mother!"
Mrs. Kelsey stood before the glass, a deep flush on her cheeks and tears
rolling down her face. Two trembling hands struggled with the lace at
her throat until the sharp point of a pin found her thumb and left a
tiny crimson stain on the spotlessness of the collar. It was then that
Mrs. Kelsey covered her face with her hands and sank into the low chair
by the bed.
"Why, mother!" cried Alma again, hurrying across the room and dropping
on her knees at her mother's side.
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