. In my day folks used ter
stay ter hum an' mind their childern, but now they've all took ter
soarin' an' it don't matter how many ends they leave flyin' loose behind
'era."

"But Penelope has no children to mind, Mrs. Riggs."

"Land alive! She hez me, an' I oughter be more ter her than a duzzen
childern,--but she ain't got no proper feelin's, Penel ain't. When I'm
a' lyin' in my coffin she'll give her eyes ter hev the chance ter rub my
rheumatiz, an' run for hot bottles an' flannels an' ginger tea. It's an
ongrateful world but I allcrs sez there ain't no use complainin'; it's
what we've got ter expec',--triberlation an' anguish an' mournin' an'
woe. It's good enuff fer us too. Sech wurms ez we be!"

"Well, Evadne, how do you do, child? I'm dretful glad to see you," and
Penelope, breezy and keen as a March wind, came bustling into the room.
"Why, yes, I'm well, child, if it wasn't for bein' so tumbled about in
my mind."

"What has tumbled you, Penelope?" asked Evadne with a merry laugh.

"The Scribes and Pharisees," was the terse rejoinder. "I've just cum
from a Committee meeting of the Missionary Society an' I'm free to
confess my feelin's is roused tremendous. Seems to me nowadays the
church is built at a different angle from the Sermon on the Mount an'
things is measured by the world's yardsticks till there ain't much
sense in callin' it a church at all. Ef you'd seen the way Squire
Higgins' girls sot down on poor little Matildy Jones this afternoon,
just because her father sells fish! Their father sells it too, but he's
got forehanded an' can do it by the gross, an' so they toss their heads
an' set a whole garden full o' flowers a' shakin' upan' down. They're
allers more peacocky in their minds after they git their spring bunnets.
The Lord said we was to consider the lilies, but I guess he meant us to
leave 'em in the fields, for I notice the more folks carries on the tops
of their heads the less their apt to be like 'em underneath."

"But what did they say to her?" asked Evadne.

"You're young, child, or you'd know there's more ways of insultin' than
with the tongue, an' poor little Matildy is jest the one to be hurt that
way. Some folks is like clams, the minute you touch 'em, they shut
themselves up in their shells an' then they don't feel what you do to
'em any more'n the Rocky mountains, but Matildy isn't made that way. She
just sot there with the flushes comin' in her cheeks an' the tears
shinin' in he