Ha, ha!" Mrs.Tanberry punctuated her observations with short volleys of husky laughter, so abrupt in both discharge and cessation that, until Miss Betty became accustomed to the habit, she was apt to start slightly at each salvo.

"I had a husband--once," the lady resumed, "but only once, my friend! He had ideas like your father's--your father is such an imbecile!--and he thought that wives, sisters, daughters, and such like ought to be obedient: that is, the rest of the world was wrong unless it was right; and right was just his own little, teeny-squeeny prejudices and emotions dressed up for a crazy masquerade as Facts.

Poor man! He only lasted about a year!" And Mrs.Tanberry laughed heartily.
"They've been at me time and again to take another." She lowered her voice and leaned toward Betty confidentially.

"Not I! I'd be willing to engage myself to Crailey Gray (though Crailey hasn't got round to me yet) for I don't mind just being engaged, my dear; but they'll have to invent something better than a man before I marry any one of 'em again! But I love 'em, I do, the Charming Billies! And you'll see how they follow me!" She patted the girl's shoulder, her small eyes beaming quizzically.

"We'll have the gayest house in Rouen, ladybird! The young men all go to the Bareauds', but they'll come here now, and we'll have the Bareauds along with 'em.