hrough, leaving some excuse about having the chores to do. She
could not bear to speak to the women and have them read her face; she
knew it would tell too much. But she must talk to Pearl. There were
things that Pearl could tell her.

That night she called Pearl on the phone. The other receivers came
down quickly, and various homely household sounds mingled in her
ears--a sewing-machine's soft purring in one house--a child's cry in
another--the musical whine of a cream separator in a third. She knew
they were all listening, but she did not care. Even if she could not
control her face, she could control her voice.

When Pearl came to the phone, Mrs. Paine invited her to come over for
supper the next night, to which Pearl gave ready acceptance--and that
was all. The interested listeners were disappointed with the brevity
of the conversation, and spoke guardedly and in cipher to each other
after Pearl and Mrs. Paine had gone: "Somebody is away, see! That's
why! Gee! some life--never any one asked over only at such times--Gee!
How'd you like to be bossed around like that?"

"She did not begin right--too mealy-mouthed. Did you hear what he's
going to buy? No! I'll tell you when I see you--we've too big an
audience right now. Don't it beat all, the time some people have to
listen in--"

"O well, I don't care! Anything I say I'm ready to back up. I don't
pretend I forget or try to twist out of things."

One receiver went up here, and the sound of the sewing-machine went
with it.

Then the conversation drifted pleasantly to a new and quicker way of
making bread that had just come out in the "Western Home Monthly."

The next evening Pearl walked over the Plover Slough to see Mrs.
Paine. She noticed the quantity of machinery which stood in the yard,
some under cover of the big shingled shed, and some of it sitting out
in the snow, gray and weather-beaten. The yard was littered, untidy,
prodigal, wasteful--every sort of machine had evidently been bought
and used for a while, then discarded. But within doors there was a
bareness that struck Pearl's heart with pity. The entrance at the
front of the house was banked high with snow, and evidently had not
been used all winter, and indeed there seemed no good reason for its
ever being used, for the front part of the house, consisting of hall,
front room opening into a bed-room, were unfurnished and unheated.

Mrs. Paine was genuinely, eagerly glad to see Pearl, and there was a