MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED 73

and tearful; she would not eat properly; she did not
want to help her mother, to do a bit of washing-up, to
tidy her room; and it was only when one of her silly
little friends called, when she was going out, that she
suddenly sprang into a vivid personal life of her own,
became eager and vivacious. This contrast, as sharp as
a sword, sometimes angered, sometimes saddened her
father, who could not imagine how his home, for which
he saw himself for ever planning and working, appeared
in the eyes of fretful, secretive and ambitious adoles-
cence. These changes in Edna annoyed and worried him
far more than they did Mrs. Smeeth, who only took
offence when she had a solid grievance, and turned a
tolerant, sagely feminine eye on what she called Edna's
"airs and graces/'

There was a bustle and clatter, and Mrs. Smeeth re-
turned to dump upon the table a little jug without a
handle. "I'm getting properly mixed up in my old age/'
she murmured breathlessly. "First I thought it was
there, in front ofnthe bottom shelf. Then when I went,
I thought I couldn't have made any, because it wasn't
there. And then—lo and behold—it was there all the
time, right at the back of the second shelf. Oh, you've
given me too much, Dad. Take some back. I'm not a
bit hungry somehow to-night, haven't been all day. You
know how you get sometimes, can't fancy anything.
Here, Edna, you want more than that. Well, I dare say
you don't, but you're going to have it, miss. None of
this silly starving yourself, a girl of your age! Because
your mother doesn't feel hungry for once in her life, it
doesn't mean you're just going to sit there, pecking
worse than a little sparrow." And here she stopped, to
take breath, to snatch Edna's plate and put some rnorc