pricked
up her ears. Blossy might be "a shaller-pate"; she might arrange the
golden-white hair of her head as befitted the crowning glory of a young
girl, with puffs and rolls and little curls, and--more than one sister
suspected--with the aid of "rats"; she might gown herself elaborately in
the mended finery of the long ago, the better years; she might dress her
lovely big room--the only double bedchamber in the house, for which she
had paid a double entrance fee--in all sorts of gewgaws, little
ornaments, hand-painted plaques of her own producing, lace bedspreads,
embroidered splashers and pillow-shams; she might even permit herself a
suitor who came twice a year more punctually than the line-storms, to
ask her withered little hand in marriage--but her heart was in the right
place, and on occasion she had proved herself a master hand at "fixin'
things."

"Yes," said she, rising to her feet and flinging out her arms with an
eloquent gesture, "we've got to do something, and there's just one thing
to do, girls: take the captain right here--here"--she brought her hands
to the laces on her bosom--"to our hearts!"

At first there was silence, with the ladies staring blankly at Blossy
and then at one another. Had they heard aright? Then there came murmurs
and exclamations, with Miss Abigail's voice gasping above the others:

"What would the directors say?"

"What do they always say when we ask a favor?" demanded Blossy. "'How
much will it cost?' It won't cost a cent."

"Won't, eh?" snapped Aunt Nancy. "How on arth be yew goin' ter vittle
him? I hain't had a second dish o' peas this year."

"Some men eat more an' some less," remarked Sarah Jane, as ill-favored a
spinster as ever the sun shone on; "generally it means so much grub ter
so much weight."

Miss Abigail glanced up at the ceiling, while Lazy Daisy, who had
refused to tip the beam for ten years, surreptitiously hid an apple
into which she had been biting.

"Le' 's have 'em weighed," suggested a widow, Ruby Lee, with a pretty,
well-preserved little face and figure, "an' ef tergether they don't come
up to the heartiest one of us--"

Miss Abigail made hasty interruption:

"Gals, hain't yew never noticed that the more yew need the more yew git?
Before Jenny Bell went to live with her darter I didn't know what I
should dew, for the taters was gittin' pooty low. Yew know she used ter
eat twenty ter a meal an' then look hungry at the platter. An' then ef
old Squ