rs. Jim, I suppose," said Mrs. Gray, with some
sarcasm.

"No, it don't. She told Dade Walker that I got all the biggest
flat-irons, when she knows I offered her the bureau. I did everything I
could to make her feel satisfied."

"I know you did, and now you must just keep cool till I see Emmy
myself."

When Mrs. Gray started out on her mission of pacification, she found it
to be entirely out of her control. The Coolly was actively partisan. One
party stood by the Harkeys, and another took Sarah's part, while the
_tertium quid_ said it was "all darn foolishness."

Mrs. Gray was appalled at the state of affairs, but struggled to
maintain a neutral position. In May, when Bill and Sarah were married,
things had reached such a stage that Emma was not invited to the wedding
supper. Nothing could have cut deeper than this neglect, and thereafter
adherents of the third remove declined to speak when passing; some even
refused to nod. The Harkey faction also condemned the early marriage of
Bill and Sarah as unseemly.

Soon after, Emma came again to see Mrs. Gray, salty with tears, and
crushed with the slight Sarah had put upon her. She was a plain pale
woman, anyway, and weeping made her pitiable. She explained the
situation with her head on Mrs. Gray's lap:--

"She never has been to see me since that day, and--but I hoped she'd
come and see me, but she never sent me any invitation to her wedding."
She choked with sobs at the memory of it.

Mrs. Gray realized the enormity of the offence, and she could only put
her arms around Emma's back and say, "There, there, I wouldn't take on
so about it." As a matter of fact, she had striven to have Bill send an
invitation to his brother-in-law, but Bill was inflexible on that point.
With the sound of the stolen cow-bell ringing in his ears, he could not
bring himself to ask Ike Harkey into his house.

After Emma grew a little calmer, Mrs. Gray tried again to bridge the
chasm. "Now, I just believe if you would go to Sarah--"

"I can't do that! She'd slam the door in my face. Jim's wife says Sarah
said I shouldn't pick a single currant out of the garden this year!"

"I don't go much on what Jim's wife says," put in Mrs. Gray, guardedly.
She had begun to feel that Jim's wife was the main disturbing element.

The sisters really suffered from their separation. They had been so used
to running in at all times of the day that each missed the other
wofully. It had been their habit whene