could keep
Ben Barry out of her mind during this important interview. Her kind
heart administered a little comfort.

"You see, there isn't any lath and plaster to the cottage, but it's good
and tight except in very bad weather," she said.

"It's a wonder you don't get rheumatics yourself," vouchsafed Charlotte.

"Nobody thinks of such a thing in that beautiful sun-soaked place,"
returned Miss Upton.

"Sun-stroke did you say?" asked Mrs. Whipp, looking up quickly.

"No." Miss Mehitable indulged in one frank laugh. "Sun-soaked."

"Sounds more like water-logged to me from your description," said the
other sourly, returning to her dinner. "I don't see why you go there."

"For two reasons. First, because I love it better than any place on
earth, and second, because it's good business. I do a better business
there than I do here. You think it over, Charlotte, because I ought to
let Nellie know."

"Well, you can let Nellie know that I'm goin'," replied Mrs. Whipp
crossly. "What sense is there in your takin' a girl to the port to go in
swimmin' while you work?"

"Nellie was a very good little helper," declared Miss Mehitable, again
taking refuge in her teacup. When she set it down she continued: "If you
think, Charlotte, that you can make up your mind to take the bitter with
the sweet, the rain and the sun, the fog and the wind, why, come along;
but it don't do a bit o' good to argue with Neptune. He'll stick his
fork right through you if you do."

Mrs. Whipp stared, but Miss Upton's eyes were twinkling so she suspected
this was just one of her jokes.

"I never was one to shirk," she declared curtly.

"Then I can tell Nellie you want to go?"

That word "want" made Charlotte writhe and was probably accountable for
the extra acidity of her reply:

"Yes, unless you're tongue-tied," she returned.

When dinner was over and the dishes washed and put away (Miss Upton's
Sunday suit being enveloped in a huge gingham apron during the
performance), Miss Mehitable watched solicitously to see if Charlotte
manifested any symptoms of going out for a constitutional. She asked
herself, with a good deal of severity, why she should dread to inform
Mrs. Whipp of her own plan for the afternoon.

"I guess I'm free, white, and twenty-one," thought Miss Upton. But all
the same she continued to cast furtive glances at Mrs. Whipp, who showed
every sign of relapsing into a rocking-chair with Pearl in her lap.

"It's a real pleasant