Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/325

Rh you learned that yet? Can't keep her bottled up in Europe, if she takes a notion not to be bottled, submarine or no submarine warfare. My! Reba," she broke off, abruptly, "you've grown good-looking! Typhoid must agree with you." She reached a fat hand across the table and laid it intimately on Reba's arm. "Tell me, child; how are you?"

"Oh, I'm well," said Reba.

"Running the whole shebang up here, so Hattie Miles down in Union tells me."

"They had to have somebody do it," Reba belittled, "and I had to have something to do, so"

"Did you? Didn't feel that way last time I was here, if I recollect. Folded hands was your duty then. Seems to me that scarab of mine has worked pretty well on you, Reba, from all I hear."

"Why, I'm back again, just where you left me, Cousin Pattie."

"Same place, perhaps. That proves nothing. I know, and you do, too, that once a chicken breaks his shell, however hard he finds the picking, he can't ever go back and be a satisfied yellow yolk again. And I'll wager you don't want to be either, Reba. You may have gotten a broken wing and a broken heart too, for all I know. But what of that? 'Tisn't fatal, like growing stale inside a shell. I guess you'd rather hobble around with no wings than go back into the dark, prenatal state I found you in four years ago. There's a look about you to-day, Reba, that makes me feel pretty sure you've uttered your first cry all right. You're married, they say," Cousin Pattie broke off, reaching across the table again and tapping the gold