I made a venture on a bold
stroke. "I shall call her Mrs. Knapp,
and then she can correct me if she
doesn't like it.; I've always heard
that it gives a middle-aged married
woman much greater offense to be
celled 'Miss' than it does to address
a single sister as 'Mrs. so here goes."
"I.hopo you had a pleasant trip
..down, I said, pleasantly, allowing
Iny voice to die nvny on the
last syllables as I found my courage
oqzing out at tho tip oi my tongue,
-1 couldn't eay Mrs. Knapp after all,
to save'me.
T noticed with much amusement
that father and mother avoided tho
sitfall as successfully as I did, duririg
that first ,meal, and we all went out
on, tho piazza after supper to enjoy
tho sunset. Ilere our guest set our
minds, at rest.
"How James- would have enjoyed
thisl" oxclaimed she, softly, as if half
to herself. Mother nodded so vigorously
and triumphantly behind her
back that I was afraid sho would notice
it, and so hastened to nod in reply.
Wo knew now. Sho was a
widow. "He loved to sit beside mo
and watch the setting sun, oven in the
city," she went on, softly. "It seems
terribly lonely without him. Oh, if I
could only havo brought him out into
6uch a peaceful place as this, he might
be alive now! That last hot spell was
so hard on him. I thought perhaps
ho had, a sunstroke, but I could not
tell."
Mother's eyes fiWed with sympathetic
tears, and as she laid her hand
gently over that of Mrs. Knapp she
inquired, tenderly: "How long is it
since he dicd,d,ear?"
"Six -weeks' answered the widow.
