e had examined every room, from ground to roof, and had scrutinized
and criticised the carpets as they had been laid and the furniture as it
had been put in place.

She saw that Willy was beginning to shiver a little, and was well
satisfied that she should feel cold. It would help take the conceit out
of her. As for herself, she wore a warm cloak and did not mind a cold
room.

"I'm told," she said, "that Mrs. Cliff's putting up a new stable. What
was the matter with the old one?"

"It wasn't big enough," said Willy.

"It holds two horses, don't it, and what could anybody want more than
that, I'd like to know!"

Willy was now getting a little out of temper.

"That's not enough for Mrs. Cliff," she said. "She's going to have a
nice carriage and a pair of horses, and a regular coachman, not Andrew
Marks!"

"Well!" said Miss Shott, and for a few moments she sat silent. Then she
spoke. "I suppose Mrs. Cliff's goin' to take boarders."

"Boarders!" cried Willy. "What makes you say such a thing as that?"

"If she isn't," said Miss Shott, "I don't see what she'll do with all
the rooms in that new part of the house."

"She's goin' to live in it," said Willy. "That's what she's goin' to do
with it!"

"Boarders are very uncertain," remarked Miss Shott, "and just as likely
to be a loss as a profit. Mr. Williams tried it at the hotel summer
after summer, and if he couldn't make anything, I don't see how Mrs.
Cliff can expect to."

"She doesn't expect to take boarders, and you know it!" said Willy.

Miss Shott folded her hands upon her lap.

"It's goin' to be a dreadful hard winter. I never did see so many acorns
and chestnuts, and there's more cedar berries on the trees than I've
ever known in all my life! I expect there'll be awful distress among
the poor, and when I say 'poor' I don't mean people that's likely to
suffer for food and a night's lodging, but respectable people who have
to work hard and calculate day and night how to make both ends meet.
These're the folks that're goin' to suffer in body and mind this winter;
and if people that's got more money than they know what to do with, and
don't care to save up for old age and a rainy day, would think sometimes
of their deserving neighbors who have to pinch and suffer when they're
going round buyin' rugs that must have cost at least as much as twenty
dollars apiece and which they don't need at all, there bein' carpet
already on the floor, it would be more to th