hand above the fence and waved it friendlily.  Blanche Devine waved back.  Thus encouraged, Snooky’s two hands wigwagged frantically above the pickets.  Blanche Devine hesitated a moment, her floury hand on her hip.  Then she went to the pantry shelf and took out a clean white saucer.  She selected from the brown jar on the table three of the brownest, crumbliest, most perfect cookies, with a walnut meat perched atop of each, placed them temptingly on the saucer and, descending the steps, came swiftly across the grass to the triumphant Snooky.  Blanche Devine held out the saucer, her lips smiling, her eyes tender.  Snooky reached up with one plump white arm.

“Snooky!” shrilled a high voice.  “Snooky!” A voice of horror and of wrath.  “Come here to me this minute!  And don’t you dare to touch those!” Snooky hesitated rebelliously, one pink finger in her pouting mouth.  “Snooky!  Do you hear me?”

And the Very Young Wife began to descend the steps of her back porch.  Snooky, regretful eyes on the toothsome dainties, turned away aggrieved.  The Very Young Wife, her lips set, her eyes flashing, advanced and seized the shrieking Snooky by one writhing arm and dragged her away toward home and safety.

Blanche Devine stood there at the fence, holding the saucer in her hand.  The saucer tipped slowly, and the three cookies slipped off and fell to the grass.  Blanche Devine followed them with her eyes and stood staring at them a moment.  Then she turned quickly, went into the house and shut the door.

It was about this time we noticed that Blanche Devine was away much of the time.  The little white cottage would be empty for a week.  We knew she was out of town because the expressman would come for her trunk.  We used to lift our eyebrows significantly.  The newspapers and handbills would accumulate in a dusty little heap on the porch; but when she returned there was always a grand cleaning, with the windows open, and Blanche—­her head bound turbanwise in a towel—­appearing at a window every few minutes to shake out a dustcloth.  She seemed to put an enormous amount of energy into those cleanings—­as if they were a sort of safety valve.

As winter came on she used to sit up before her grate fire long, long after we were asleep in our beds.  When she neglected to pull down the shades we could see the flames of her cosy fire dancing gnomelike on the wall.

There came a night of sleet and snow, and wind and rattling hail—­one of those blustering, wild nights that are followed by morning-paper reports of trains stalled in drifts, mail delayed, telephone and telegraph wires down.  It must have been midnight or past when there came a hammering at Blanche Devine’s door—­a persistent, clamorous rapping.  Blanche Devine, sitting before her dying fire half asleep, started and cringed when she heard it; then jumped to her feet, her hand at her breast—­her eyes darting this way and that, as though seeking escape.