stroke—a stroke he'll remember. I drew the blood, I did! Put out your hand, boy, till I see it." She was purple with excitement.
Renny set down his glass of rum and water. He came and leaned over her. "Don't you want to be kissed, Gran?" he inquired on a coaxing note.
She raised her eyes and, from under the rim of her cap, peered into his face. Its lean redness, thus suddenly brought close to hers, shutting out her view of the others; his strongly carved nose, resembling her own; his lips, drawn back from his strong teeth in a smile, hard, yet still somehow tolerant and tender, caught her attention, submerged her in an enchantment she could not resist. Renny, bone of her bone, a Court of Courts, one of the old stock—nothing puling about him.
"Kiss me," she ejaculated. "Kiss me quick!"
Finch, under screen of the embrace, slipped from the room. Going up the thickly carpeted stairs, he could hear the loud exchange of kisses.
Panting a good deal, the old lady looked around the room triumphantly after Renny had released her—she seemed to have gathered strength from his pressing vitality—and, giving a valiant tug to her cap which again disposed it over one eye, she demanded: "My teeth! I want my teeth. I'm hungry. Somebody get my teeth."
"Will one of you please get the teeth for her?" murmured Augusta, resignedly.
Wakefield blithely danced back to the bedroom, reappearing instantly with the two sets of teeth in a tumbler of water. Mrs. Whiteoak leaned toward him as he approached, and stretched out her hands. She could scarcely endure the waiting for them. The little boy joggled the tumbler before her.
"For pity's sake be careful, child," exclaimed Augusta.
"He should never have been allowed to fetch them," observed Ernest, and, despising himself for doing it, he poured a little more rum into his glass.
It had been a good evening, Renny thought. What a supper the old lady had made! And how the old boys
