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 kissing her mother's flaccid cheeks while she pleaded, "Mamma, mamma, come back!"

At last mamma decided to recover sufficiently to let herself be assisted to a sitting posture; and to an unaccustomed person her pretense would have been transparent; but to Daisy, this was mamma, herself, and this always had been mamma's way. To another person, the heavy body and flaccid face and the bobbed hair, bleached and with its youthful wave, would have seemed absurd; but Daisy saw no absurdity. She only saw, more or less anxiously, "mamma," who had been Daisy's care, more like a child than like a mother for many years.

"Daisy, you frightened me so," mamma rebuked. "You frightened me so."

"I didn't mean to, mamma."

"But you did."

Mamma was in a loose satin dressing-robe and her crepe silk underwear, her favorite attire for home reading and candy-eating. A half emptied box of the most expensive chocolates was on the stand beside the couch; Sunday papers strewed the floor, and the sight of them seemed to recompose mamma to a purpose which had been in her mind.

"Daisy, you can tell mamma the truth; Ket did it, didn't he?"

"He did not, mamma!" Daisy cried.

"Trust mamma, Daisy! You can trust mamma!"

And when Daisy obstinately refused to impart the confidence desired, mamma announced, crushingly, "Mr. Hoberg says he did!"

"Hoberg!" cried Daisy. "He hopes Ket did!"

"Mr. Hoberg," said mamma, and repeated the name in an accent of satisfaction, "Mr. Hoberg seems to be a very substantial man, Daisy—very substantial."