Tryphena.

"Well, at least," I urged, "don't be in such a hurry about it. Take time
to think it over! Wait till--"

"Wait!" cried Cousin Tryphena. "Why, another one may be jumpin' in the
river this minute! If I'd ha' had the money, I'd ha' gone on the noon
train!"

At this point, the man from Putnam's came with a team from our livery to
carry away the Sheraton sideboard. Cousin Tryphena bore herself like a
martyr at the stake, watching, with dry eyes, the departure of her one
certificate to dear gentility and receiving with proud indifference the
crisp bills of a denomination most of us had never seen before.

"You won't need all that just to go down to the city," I remonstrated.

She stopped watching the men load her shining old treasure into the wagon
and turned her anguished eyes to me. "They'll likely be needing clothes
and things."

I gave up. She had indeed thought it all out.

It was time for us to go home to prepare our several suppers and we went
our different ways, shaking our heads over Tryphena's queerness. I stopped
a moment before the cobbler's open door, watched him briskly sewing a
broken halter and telling a folk-tale to some children by his knee. When
he finished, I said with some acerbity, "Well, Jombatiste, I hope you're
satisfied with what you've done to poor old Miss Tryphena ... spoiling the
rest of her life for her!"

"Such a life, Madame," said Jombatiste dryly, "ought to be spoiled, the
sooner the better."

"She's going to start for the city to-morrow," I said, supposing of course
that he had heard the news.

Jombatiste looked up very quickly. "For what goes she to the city?"

"Why ... she's gone daft over those bogie-stories of yours ... she's
looked the list over and picked out the survivors, the widow of the man
who died of tuberculosis, and so on, and she's going to bring them back
here to share her luxurious life."

Jombatiste bounded into the air as if a bomb had exploded under him,
scattering his tools and the children, rushing past me out of the house
and toward Cousin Tryphena's. ... As he ran, he did what I have never seen
anyone do, out of a book; he tore at his bushy hair and scattered handfuls
in the air. It seemed to me that some sudden madness had struck our dull
little village, and I hastened after him to protect Cousin Tryphena.

She opened the door in answer to his battering knocks, frowned, and began
to say something to him, but was fairly swept off her feet b