The three days passed somehow. The wanderer was to return on Thursday morning, but she did not. Instead came a telegram, reading as follows:
“Meeting and paper great success. Send immediately one of my latest photographs. Serena.”
The puzzled Daniel sent the photograph preceded by a telegram of his own which read:
“When are you coming home? Why don't you write? Have been worried about you. Answer.”
The answer was delayed still another day. When it came, it was in the shape of a very short note stating that Saturday was the date of return. Serena wrote that she was having a lovely time. She would tell him all about it when she got back. “And,” she added, “I am sending you by this mail copies of the Atterbury paper. Please show it to any of the Chapter members whom you may meet.”
Captain Dan unfolded the paper and gazed at the page marked with blue pencil. Here, under black headlines, which screamed the success of the convention of the Ladies of Honor, was a horrible blotted outrage resembling a stout negress peering through a screen door and labeled, “Mrs. Serena Sarah Dott, of Scarford, whose brilliant paper scored the success of the meeting.” It was only by a process of deduction that Daniel realized the thing to be a reproduction of the photograph he had sent. He glanced hurriedly over the account of the meeting, catching here and there phrases like “Mrs. Dott's forte is evidently platform speaking”—“clear thought, well expressed”—“tumultuous applause.” He felt that he ought to read the account from beginning to end, but also that he could not. Azuba, however, when it was shown to her, had no such feeling. She bore it to the kitchen, read it all, and returned to crow vaingloriously.
“Well, there now, Captain Daniel!” she exclaimed. “Ain't it wonderful! Ain't it grand! Ain't you a lucky man to have a wife as notorious as she's gettin' to be! I swan to man, if it ain't—”
The captain interrupted her. “Azuba,” he said, rather testily for him, “if you use that word again I don't know as I won't make you eat a dictionary. My wife may be famous and she may be a platform speaker, but I'm blessed if I'll have her notorious, not if I can help it.”
“But she is notorious, ain't she? Look at her right there in the newspaper, with all that piece about her in print! I wish Labe could read such a piece in the paper about me. Why, what ails you, Daniel Dott? Just look at that photograph!”
Captain Dan rose. “Yes,” he said drily, “I've been lookin' at it. That's part of what ails me.”