Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/283

Rh It became one of those tragi-comedies of household life that develop day by day, week after week, in the small incidents of domestic routine. Bailey did his best to smooth over the situation, but he was no diplomat. He asked Mrs. Joliffe to play cribbage with him, once, tentatively; but he was evidently relieved when she did not accept. He allowed Hetty to send her own clothes to the laundry, and then his, and finally the household linen. He even ate less heartily what Mrs. Joliffe cooked, and he was content when she accepted these slights without appearing to notice them. He let Hetty take down the curtains in the parlor and put up others more to her taste. He gave her money to buy some new furniture, and she put away the rugs.

Mrs. Joliffe, sitting quiet and humiliated in the dining-room, heard the girl, now, singing as she worked. By this time, of course, Hetty was no longer silent at the table, except when she and her mother were alone. When Bailey was there, she was quite talkative and affable, and affected to ignore what looked like ill humor in the old woman. "She 'll come around," she told him privately. "She 's sulky because she can't have everything her own way." She had bought a recipe book and she was experimenting in the kitchen with desserts, which Bailey praised immoderately and ate largely of. She had persuaded him that tea gave him indigestion; she did not drink it herself; and her mother had none to pour but her own. When the furnishings of the dining-room were overhauled, she turned the