pped.

"Oh, he's got enough money to set up housekeeping like a king," said
Aunt Ruby, feeling that this was safe ground. "If he had anybody to set
up with him," she added, and laughed at her own wit.

"But did Miss Stanley really think of going to teach in a foreign
mission-school?" Miss Custer asked.

"To be sure she did," said Aunt Ruby. "She's a Christian girl, if ever
there was one. You might look the world over, Miss Custer, an' you'd
hardly find another girl like Ruth Stanley. She's the same as a
missionary right here at home, because she looks out for every poor an'
sick body in the town, an' spends half her wages to help them."

"Just the sort of person, then, for a doctor's wife," laughed Miss
Custer, and gathered up her embroidery to go back to the veranda.

Instead of going through the dining-room, the way she had entered, she
crossed over to the door of the back sitting-room, which was ajar, and
pushed it open. She started and her cheeks crimsoned, at the
recollection of her conversation with Aunt Ruby, on finding the
sitting-room occupied.

Mrs. Tascher sat in Aunt Ruby's great arm-chair, with its calico
cushions, looking over some fashion-plates in the carelessly-indolent
way that very warm weather induces. She had some pieces of muslin and a
pair of scissors beside her on the table, as though she had been cutting
out. She looked up with a smile that was intended simply as an
expression of politeness, and not such a smile as she would give a
friend, and nodded: "Good-afternoon, Miss Custer."

Miss Custer, feeling herself compromised by having been caught
gossiping--and by Mrs. Tascher, of all people!--fortified herself by a
little accession of pride in her usually suave demeanor.
"Good-afternoon," she returned, passing on through the room. "How
stiflingly warm it is here!"

"Yes. I have been thinking of going into the parlor," said Mrs. Tascher:
"it is always cool there, because the blinds are kept closed."

"Does she say that to prevent my taking refuge in the parlor?" thought
Miss Custer, and moved on and went outside.

By and by some soft piano-strains came through the window, the sash of
which was raised, at her back. When they ceased she became conscious,
without turning her head to look through the shutters, that Mrs. Tascher
had seated herself in an easy-chair and taken up a book from the
centre-table, which held the usual stock of gilt-edged
poems--Whittier's, Tennyson's, etc.

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