fresh in my memory," she added, happily, "and Roger is so
busy with his law books he don't have time to listen to 'em except at
supper. He reads law every evening now, and he didn't used to. Guess he
ain't wasting so much time as he was. Been down to the hotel yet?" she
asked, inclining her head toward Miriam.

"Once," answered Miriam, reluctantly.

[Sidenote: Gossip]

"There ain't many come yet," the postmaster's wife tells me. "There's a
young lady at the hotel named Miss Eloise Wynne, and every day but
Saturday she gets a letter from the city, addressed in a man's writin'.
And every afternoon, when the boy brings the hotel mail down to go out
on the night train, there's a big white square envelope in a woman's
writin' addressed to Doctor Allan Conrad, some place in the city. The
envelope smells sweet, but the writin' is dreadful big and
sploshy-lookin'. Know anything about her?" Miss Mattie gazed sharply at
Miriam over her spectacles.

"No," returned Miriam, decisively.

"Thought maybe you would. Anyhow, you don't need to be so sharp about
it, cause there's no harm in askin' a civil question. My mother always
taught me that a civil question called for a civil answer. I should
think, from the letters and all, that he was her steady company,
shouldn't you?"

"It's possible," assented Barbara, seeing that Miriam did not intend to
reply.

"There's some talk at the sewin' circle of gettin' you one of them hand
sewin' machines," continued Miss Mattie, "so's you could sew more and
better."

Barbara flushed painfully. "Thank you," she answered, "but I couldn't
use it. I much prefer to do all my work by hand."

"All right," assented Miss Mattie, good-humouredly. "It ain't our idea
to force a sewin' machine onto anybody that don't want it. We can use
some of the money in gettin' a door-mat for the front door of the
church. And, if I was you, I wouldn't let my pa run around so much by
himself. If he wants to borrow a dog to go with him, Roger would be
willin' to lend him Judge Bascom's Fido. If the Judge wasn't willin',
Roger would try to persuade him. Lendin' Fido would make law easier for
Roger and be a great help to your pa.

"I must go, now, and get supper. Good-bye. I've enjoyed my visit ever so
much. Come over sometime, Miriam--you ain't very sociable. Good-bye."

The two women watched Miss Mattie scudding blithely over the trail
which, as she said, Roger had worn in the grass. Miriam looked after her
gloo