h, I just know he and Minnie will be hunting me
everywhere. Maybe I had better go home, 'stead of to Baxter."

"No, you hadn't," said Tilly, with decision. "Mother's going to Baxter,
too, and if you like, minnit you're safely off, I'll go tell your
folks."

"You're real kind, I'd be ever so much obliged. And you don't mind your
ma travelling alone? ain't that nice for her!" She seemed much cheered
by the prospect of company and warmed into confidences.

"I am kinder lonesome, sometimes, that's a fact," said she, "and I
kinder wish I lived in a block or a flat like your ma. You see, Minnie
teaches in the public school and she's away all day, and she don't like
to have me make company of the hired girl, though she's a real nice
girl. And there ain't nothing for me to do, and I feel like I wasn't no
use any more in the world. I remember that's what our old minister
in Ohio said once. He was a real nice old man; and they HAD thought
everything of him in the parish; but he got old and his sermons were
long; and so they got a young man for assistant; and they made HIM a
_pastor americus_, they called it--some sort of Latin. Folks did say
the young feller was stuck up and snubbed the old man; anyhow, he never
preached after young Lisbon come; and only made the first prayers. But
when the old folks would ask him to preach some of the old sermons
they had liked, he only would say, 'No, friends, I know more about my
sermons, now.' He didn't live very long, and I always kinder fancied
being a AMERICUS killed him. And some days I git to feeling like I was a
kinder AMERICUS myself."

"That ain't fair to your children," said Tilly; "you ought to let them
know how you feel. Then they'd act different."

"Oh, I don't know, I don't know. You see, miss, they're so sure they
know better'n me. Say, Mrs. Louder, be you going to visit relatives in
Baxter?"

"No, ma'am, I'm going to take care of a sick lady," said Jane, "it's
kinder queer. Her name's Ferguson, her----"

"For the land's sake!" screamed Mrs. Higbee, "why, that's my 'Liza!" She
was in a flutter of surprise and delight, and so absorbed was Tilly in
getting her and her unwieldy luggage into the car, that Jane's daughter
forgot to kiss her mother good-by.

"Put your arm in QUICK," she yelled, as Jane essayed to kiss her hand
through the window; "don't EVER put your arm or your head out of a
train!"--the train moved away--"I do hope she'll remember what I told
her, and not