May turned her head on the back of the rocking-chair, her eyes staring inscrutably over the bandage. "'Ow d'ye do," she said, in a muffled tone. "Sit down and make yourself comfortable." She gave a weary gesture toward a yellow kitchen chair.
Ada seated herself, setting her feet well out before her. They were dressed in patent leather high-heeled shoes, the thick ankles glistened in imitation silk. On her red pompadour perched a black velvet hat with a drooping white plume. She wore a green and white plaid ulster and white kid gloves.
She did not know what to make of this queer little cousin of Albert's. There was some mystery about her, something not quite straight. One could never be sure of a husband who had come from a great city like London. There was something shady about May, and, whatever it was, Albert knew it. She had tackled him about it one night, a terrible quarrel followed, and he had closed one of her beady eyes for her. "Nah, you cursed Canuck," he had said wrathfully, "I'll teach yer to cast narsty insinooations on my family." It was all very well for Albert to get annoyed, fussed up about his family and all, but Ada believed May was not all that she should be.
She felt immensely superior, sitting opposite May in her fine clothes. She placed her feet a little further forward, glancing at May's blue cotton stockings and red felt slippers with a pitying smile.
May began to rock. Instead of drawing her hideous foot-gear under the chair from Ada's sight, she thrust her feet out before her, striking the floor with her toes, and rocking violently so that the insistent explosive sound in the chair's anatomy cracked like defensive guns.
"It must be awful to be swelled up like that," com-
