:

"Are you going to be married, Mrs. Burke?"

"No such thing! But when a handsome young widow like me lives alone,
frisky and sixty-ish, with six lonesome, awkward widowers in the same
school district, you can never tell what might happen any minute; 'In
time of peace prepare for war,' as the paper says."

Maxwell laughed reassuringly.

"I don't see why you laugh," Mrs. Burke responded, chuckling to
herself. "'Taint polite to look surprised when a woman says she's
a-goin' to get married. Every woman under ninety-eight has
expectations. While there's life there's hope that some man will make
a fool of himself. But unless I miss my guess, you don't catch me
surrenderin' my independence. As long as I have enough to eat and am
well, I'm contented."

"You certainly look the picture of health, Mrs. Burke."

"Oh, yes! as well as could be expected, when I'm just recoverin' from
a visit from Mary Sam."

"What sort of a visitor is that?" asked Maxwell, laughing.

"Mary Sam is my sister-in-law. She spends a month with me every year
on her own invitation. She is what you'd call a hardy annual. She is
the most stingy and narrow-minded woman I ever saw. The bark on the
trees hangs in double box-plaits as compared with Mary Sam. But I got
the best of her last year. While I was cleanin' the attic I came
across the red pasteboard sign with 'Scarlet Fever' painted on it,
that the Board of Health put on the house when Nickey had the fever
three years ago. The very next day I was watchin' the 'bus comin' up
Main Street, when I saw Mary Sam's solferino bonnet bobbin' up and
down inside. Before she got to the house, I sneaked out and pinned up
the sign, right by the front door. She got onto the piazza, bag,
baggage, and brown paper bundles, before she caught sight of it. Then
I wish you could have seen her face: I wouldn't have believed so much
could be done with so few features."

"She didn't linger long?" laughed the parson, who continued arranging
his books while his visitor chatted.

"Linger? Well, not exactly. She turned tail and run lickety-spindle
back for the 'bus as if she had caught sight of a subscription paper
for foreign missions. I heard Jim Anderson, who drives the 'bus,
snicker as he helped her in again; but he didn't give me away. Jim and
I are good friends. But when she got home she wrote to Sally Ramsdale
to ask how Nickey was; and Sally, not bein' on to the game, wrote back
that there was nothin' the matter