ings I care for; the sea is nothing to
them, and the rocks less than nothing; and instead of being quiet, they
talk nonsense, or what seems nonsense to me; and I'd as lieve be at
home."

"What do they go for then?"

"I don't know. I think they do not know what to do with themselves."

"What do they stay here for, then, for pity's sake? If they are tired,
why don't they go away?"

"I can't tell. That is what I have asked myself a great many times.
They are all as well as fishes, every one of them."

Mrs. Marx held her peace and let things go their train for a few days
more. Mrs. Wishart still gave her and Lois a good deal to do, though
her ailments aroused no anxiety. After those few days, Mrs. Marx spoke
again.

"What keeps you so mum?" she said to Lois. "Why don't you talk, as
other folks do?"

"I hardly see them, you know, except at meals."

"Why don't you talk at meal times? that's what I am askin' about. You
can talk as well as anybody; and you sit as mum as a stick."

"Aunty, they all talk about things I do not understand."

"Then I'd talk of something _they_ don't understand. Two can play at
that game."

"It wouldn't be amusing," said Lois, laughing.

"Do you call _their_ talk amusing? It's the stupidest stuff I ever did
hear. I can't make head or tail of it; nor I don't believe they can.
Sounds to me as if they were tryin' amazin' hard to be witty, and
couldn't make it out."

"It sounds a good deal like that," Lois assented.

"They go on just as if you wasn't there!"

"And why shouldn't they?"

"Because you are there."

"I am nothing to them," said Lois quietly.

"Nothing to them! You are worth the whole lot."

"They do not think so."

"And politeness is politeness."

"I sometimes think," said Lois, "that politeness is rudeness."

"Well, I wouldn't let myself be put in a corner so, if I was you."

"But I am in a corner, to them. All the world is where _they_ live; and
I live in a little corner down by Shampuashuh."

"Nobody's big enough to live in more than a corner--if you come to
that; and one corner's as good as another. That's nonsense, Lois."

"Maybe, aunty. But there is a certain knowledge of the world, and habit
of the world, which makes some people very different from other people;
you can't help that."

"I don't want to help it?" said Mrs. Marx. "I wouldn't have you like
them, for all the black sheep in my flock."

CHAPTER XVI.

MRS. MARX'S OPINION.

A