Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/80

 as a man who will not work? What were you placed in the world for? How do you justify your existence?”

“How,” replied her unabashed audience, with a wave of his pipe toward the front yard, where Mr. Welles was amiably superintending a wrestling match, “does he justify hisn?”

Had Miss Gould been less consistent and less in earnest, there were many replies open to her. As it was, she colored violently, bit her lip, made an inaudible remark, and with a bitter glance at the author of her confusion, now cheering on to the conflict the scrambling Waters children, she called their mother to account for their presence in the yard at this time on a school-day, and for the first time in her life left the house without exacting a solemn promise of amendment from the head of the family.

“I guess I fixed her that time!” Mr. Waters remarked triumphantly, as he summoned his second pair of twins from