The Realty Company'll go on all
right, mamma. There ain't anything anywhere, I reckon, that wouldn't
go right on--just the same."
And he passed out slowly into the hall; then they heard his heavy
tread upon the stairs.
Mrs. Sheridan, rising to follow him, turned a piteous face to her son.
"It's so forlone," she said, chokingly. "That's the first time he
spoke since he came in the house this evening. I know it must 'a'
hurt him to hear Edith laughin' with that Lamhorn. She'd oughtn't to
let him come, right the very first evening this way; she'd oughtn't
to done it! She just seems to lose her head over him, and it scares
me. You heard what Sibyl said the other day, and--and you heard
what--what--"
"What Edith said to Sibyl?" Bibbs finished the sentence for her.
"We CAN'T have any trouble o' THAT kind!" she wailed. "Oh, it looks
as if movin' up to this New House had brought us awful bad luck!
It scares me!" She put both her hands over her face. "Oh, Bibbs,
Bibbs! if you only wasn't so QUEER! If you could only been a kind
of dependable son! I don't know what we're all comin' to!" And,
weeping, she followed her husband.
Bibbs gazed for a while at the fire; then he rose abruptly, like a man
who has come to a decision, and briskly sought the room--it was called
"the smoking-room"--where Edith sat with Mr.
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