rch from
"Lohengrin,"--an excellent tune to march by,--she changed her flutelike
notes for a well-known piercing trill. At the second shrill summons
Mrs. Harmon came to the door.

"Just a minute, Kitty--I 'm coming."

"Don't forget your specimen," called Mrs. Wright.

Mrs. Harmon, after a somewhat protracted minute, came out with nothing
on her arm but a book.

"I 've just been too busy for anything," she explained. "You know I
had the dressmaker two days--I thought I 'd take the opportunity while
George was away at the ranch. And, besides," she added, after a short
pause, "I did n't think of it."

"That's right, Statia. Always tell the truth, even as an afterthought."

"My! but you 're coming out bright this evening," responded Mrs. Harmon.

"I hope we can depend upon the others," mused Kitty.

Mrs. Dix and Mrs. Norton came out of their respective homes
empty-handed except for books. So also Mrs. Plympton and her mother.

"Well, I just don't care," said Mrs. Norton. "How in the world could I
get a stone? I have been having the awfulest time with our windmill.
The thingumajig that is supposed to turn it off has got broken or
something and it keeps pumping water all over where I don't want it to.
If I had an artificial pond like the Harmons I would know what to do
with so much water. I wonder when Jonas Hicks will get back?"

"I wonder!" echoed Mrs. Dix. "I was depending upon him. Mr. Dix said
he expected him back in a day or two. If it had n't been for that he
would n't have taken Fred along; for you know I can't put a saddle on
Major myself. Jonas will probably be back to-day or to-morrow he said."

"I am su-u-u-ure," said little Grandma Plympton, in her sweet and
feeble tremolo,--"I am su-u-u-ure that if we had all asked Mr. Hicks to
get us a stone he would most willingly have done so. Mr. Hicks would
do anything for a lady."

Grandma Plympton--what there was left of her after seventy-four years
of time's attrition--had a way of speaking which made it easy enough to
believe that she had, in her day, been a beautiful singer. As her
message to the world was usually one of promise and reassurance, she
had the gift of dwelling with songlike sweetness on those words in
which the music lay. She was altogether lovable and quaint. On fine
days she would still go forth alone, bearing her mother-of-pearl
card-case, and she would leave her card here or there as naturally as a
flower drops a petal; f