wouldn't say it to any but a friend. You never eat no preserves o'
hers that wa'n't commencin' to work, an' you know as well as I how
little forethought she had about putting away her woolens. I sat
behind her once in meetin' when I was stoppin' with the Tremletts and
so occupied a seat in their pew, an' I see between ten an' a dozen
moth millers come workin' out o' her fitch-fur tippet. They was
flutterin' round her bonnet same's 'twas a lamp. I should be mortified
to death to have such a thing happen to me."

"Every housekeeper has her weak point; I've got mine as much as
anybody else," acknowledged Mercy Crane with spirit, "but you never
see no moth millers come workin' out o' me in a public place."

"Ain't your oven beginning to get overhet?" anxiously inquired Sarah
Ellen Dow, who was sitting more in the draught, and could not bear to
have any accident happen to the supper. Mrs. Crane flew to a
short-cake's rescue, and presently called her guest to the table.

The two women sat down to deep and brimming cups of tea. Sarah Ellen
noticed with great gratification that her hostess had put on two of
the best tea-cups and some citron-melon preserves. It was not an
every-day supper. She was used to hard fare, poor, hard-working Sarah
Ellen, and this handsome social attention did her good. Sister Crane
rarely entertained a friend, and it would be a pleasure to speak of
the tea-drinking for weeks to come.

"You've put yourself out quite a consid'able for me," she
acknowledged. "How pretty these cups is! You oughtn't to use 'em so
common as for me. I wish I had a home I could really call my own to
ask you to, but 't ain't never been so I could. Sometimes I wonder
what's goin' to become o' me when I get so I'm past work. Takin' care
o' sick folks an' bein' in houses where there's a sight goin' on an'
everybody in a hurry kind of wears on me now I'm most a-gittin' in
years. I was wishin' the other day that I could get with some
comfortable kind of a sick person, where I could live right along
quiet as other folks do, but folks never sends for me 'less they're
drove to it. I ain't laid up anything to really depend upon."

The situation appealed to Mercy Crane, well to do as she was and not
burdened with responsibilities. She stirred uneasily in her chair, but
could not bring herself to the point of offering Sarah Ellen the home
she coveted.

"Have some hot tea," she insisted, in a matter of fact tone, and Sarah
Ellen's