til it's too late."

The woman was scraping the bits of dough from her hands as she spoke, and
this done, she sprinkled flour over the top of the soft lump in the pan
and covered it with a piece of old linen cloth. As she took it to a warm
corner behind the stove, she added: "Do you'se know! Abe was late fer our
weddin'. But I knew him for procrastinatin', even in them days, so I made
everyone wait. He come in an 'nour behind time, sayin' he had to walk
from his place 'cause his horse was too lame to ride. That's Abe all
over, in everythun."

The house-keeper finished her task and turned to her callers. "Now then!
Do yuh like white er brown aigs?"

"White ones, please," returned Mrs. Fabian.

The woman went to the large storeroom off the kitchen and counted out a
dozen eggs in a box. When she came back she held them in one hand while
waiting for payment, with outstretched other hand.

"That's a fine sofa you've got in the next room," remarked Mrs. Fabian,
pretending not to notice the open palm.

"Yeh, d'ye know, I paid fifteen dollars jus' fer that red plush alone?"
declared she, going to the door and turning to invite her visitors to
come in. The box of eggs was forgotten for the time.

The girls followed Mrs. Fabian to the best room that opened from the
large kitchen, and to their horror they saw that the sofa referred to was
a hideous Victorian affair of walnut frame upholstered in awful red
mohair plush.

But Mrs. Fabian made the most of her optics the moment she got inside the
room. Thus it happened that she spied a few little ornaments on the old
mantel-shelf.

"What old-fashioned glass candle-sticks," said she, going over to look at
the white-glass holders with pewter sockets.

"Ain't they awful! I've told Abe, many a time, that I'd throw them out,
some day, and get a real nice bankit lamp fer the center table," returned
the hostess.

"And won't he throw them away?" asked Mrs. Fabian, guilelessly.

"He says, why should we waste 'em, when they comes in so handy, in
winter, to carry down cellar fer apples. He likes 'em cuz he onny paid a
quarter fer 'em an' a glass pitcher, at an auction, some miles up the
road. But that wuz so long ago we've got our money's wuth outen them. Now
I wants a brass lamp an' he says I'm gettin' scandalous in my old
age--awastin' money on flim-flams fer the settin' room. He says lamps is
fer parlor use."

Her repressed aspirations in furnishings made the woman pity hersel