ABSTRACT
In the following autumn Margaret Massarene caught cold. It was a slight ailment at first, and if she had been the woman she had been in North Dakota she would have soon thrown off the chill. But she had experienced in her own person the perils with which she had once said her William was menaced – her love of the good things of the table had affected her liver and her digestive organs. She had never stinted herself, as she had expressed it; indeed, she had overeaten herself continually ever since that first wondrous day when her man had said to her: ‘he pile’s made, old woman; we’ll go home and spend it.’
