"Of course he knows it wouldn't do anything of the kind, or else he'd have done it long ago." "He would, you say ?" her mother cried.

"That only shows how little you know him!" "Poor mama!" Alice said again, soothingly.

"If papa were like what you say he is, he'd be--why, he'd be crazy!" Mrs.Adams agreed with a vehemence near passion.

"You're right about him for once: that's just what he is! He sits up there in his stubbornness and lets us slave here in the kitchen when if he wanted to--if he'd so much as lift his little finger----" "Oh, come, now!" Alice laughed.

"You can't build even a glue factory with just one little finger." Mrs.Adams seemed about to reply that finding fault with a figure of speech was beside the point; but a ringing of the front door bell forestalled the retort.