"Won't you come in and be seated?" Lily urged, hospitably.
Edith said no; she was sorry; but she must go right back; "Mrs. Curtis is very ill, I am sorry to say."
At this moment Jacky came out to the gate; he had two cookies in his hand. He said, shyly: "Maw's is better 'an yours. You can have"—this with a real effort—"the big one."
Edith took the "big one," pleasantly, and said, "Yes, they are nicer than ours, Jacky."
But Lily was mortified. "The lady'll think you have no manners. Go on back into the house!"
"Won't," said Jacky, eating his cooky.
His mother tried to cover his obstinacy with conversation: "He's crazy about Mr. Curtis. Well, no wonder. Mr. Curtis was a great friend of my husband's. Mr. Dale—his name was Augustus; I named Jacky after him; Ernest Augustus. He died three years ago; no, I guess it was two—"
"Huh?" said Jacky, interested, "You said my paw died—"
Lily, with that desire to smack her son which every mother knows, cut his puzzled arithmetic short. "Yes. Mr. Dale was a great clubman. In Philadelphia. I believe that's where he and Mr. Curtis got to be chums. But I never met her."
Edith said, rigidly, "Really?"