hem."

"They'll be worth just the same to _me_ then that they are now,"
responded Miss Colishaw, more gently. She evidently saw the hopelessness
of trying to impress her point of view on Mrs. Joy.

"I dare say you have an attic-full of delightful old spinning-wheels and
things," remarked that lady, quick to mark the change of tone and hoping
to profit by it. She glanced toward the stair-foot as she spoke. Miss
Colishaw quickly stepped in front of the stairs, and stood there with
the air of an ancient Roman defending his household gods.

"Yes, ma'am, I _have_ an attic," she said dryly. "It's a very good
attic, and it's stuffed full of old things. There's a fender and two
pairs of fire-dogs--"

Mrs. Joy's eyes sparkled. "Oh, do let us go up and see it!" she cried.

"No, you don't!" said Miss Colishaw, taking a firmer grasp of the
baluster. "There's a wool-wheel, and a flax-wheel, and a winder, and
three warming-pans--"

"Dear me! What a delightful place!" put in Mrs. Joy.

"There's lots and lots of old truck," continued the implacable Miss
Colishaw. "It all belonged to my mother and my grandmother and her
mother before her. It's all up there; and there it's going to stay, if
all the rich ladies in Newport come down to try to wheedle me out of it.
Not a soul of them shall set foot in my attic."

"Well, I must say that I think you very foolish," said Mrs. Joy,
settling the wrists of her long gloves. "You're very poor, and these old
things are no use to you in the way you live; and you'd far better take
the money they would bring, and make yourself comfortable."

Miss Colishaw was now pale with anger.

"And who told you I was poor?" she demanded. "Did I ever come a-begging
to you? Did I ever walk into your house to pry and rummage, and tell you
that your things were no use? When I do you'll have a right to come here
and behave as you have, but not a minute before. Use! They _are_ of use.
They remind me of my family,--of the time I was young, when we all lived
in this house together, before Newport grew to be a fashionable
boarding-place and was spoiled for people of the old sort. If that's
all the business you have with me, madam, I think we have got through
with it."

"Really, there's no occasion for being so very rude," said Mrs. Joy.

"Rude!" Miss Colishaw gave an acrid laugh. "Mine ain't fashionable
manners, I know; but I guess they're about as good." She opened the
front door, and held it suggestively wide