idled for perhaps half an hour in the yard, and then
went into the kitchen. Belle, sooty and untidy, had paused at the
kitchen table, with her dustpan resting three feet away from the cold
mutton that lay there. Mrs. Monroe's hair was in some disorder, and a
streak of black from the stove lay across one of her lean, greasy
wrists. The big stove was cooling now, ashes drifted from the firebox
door, and an enormous saucepan of slowly cooking beans gave forth a
fresh, unpleasant odour. At all the windows the fog pressed softly.

"Are you going down town, Sally?" the mother asked.

"Well--I thought we would. We can if you want!" said Sally.

"If you do, I wish you'd step into Mason & White's, and ask one of the
men there if they aren't ever going to send me the rest of my box of
potatoes."

"All right!" Martie and Sally put their hats on in the downstair hall,
shouted upstairs to Lydia for the shoes, and sauntered out contentedly
into the soft, foggy morning. The Monroe girls never heard the garden
gate slam behind them without a pleasant yet undefined sense of
freedom. The sun was slowly but steadily gaining on the fog, a bright
yellow blur showed the exact spot where shining light must soon break
through. Trees along the way dripped softly, but on the other side of
the bridge, where houses were set more closely together, and gardens
less dense, sidewalks and porches were already drying.

The girls walked past the new, trim little houses and the clumsy, big,
old-fashioned ones, chattering incessantly. Their bright, interested
eyes did not miss the tiniest detail. The village, sleepier than ever
on the morning of the half-holiday, was full of interest to them.

Mrs. Hughie Wilson was sweeping her garden path, and called out to them
that the church concert had netted 327 dollars; wasn't that pretty good?

A few steps farther on they met Alice Clark, who kept them ten minutes
in eager, unimportant conversation. Her parting remark sent the Monroe
girls happily on their way.

"I hear Rodney Parker's home--don't pretend to be surprised, Martha
Monroe. A little bird was telling me that I'll have to go up North Main
Street for news of him after this!"

"Who do you s'pose told her we met Rod Parker?" Martie grinned as they
went on.

"People see everything! Oh, Martie," said Sally earnestly, "I do hope
you are going to marry; no, don't laugh! I don't mean Rod, of course,
I'm not such a fool. But I mean some one."

"You