WELL, I don’ knaow ’s I go’s fur’s Sabriny, ’n’ say ther’s a cuss on th’ fam’ly, ’n’ thet M’tildy Warren put it there, fur after all, three deaths hand-runnin’ in tew years ain’t an onheerd-of thing, but I don’t blame her fur gittin’ daown-hearted over it. Poor ole creetur, she’s be’n a carryin’ the hull load o’ grief on her shoulders sence Sissly died. I shouldn’t wonder if it’d be tew much for her naow.”

Alvira sighed, and let her eyes wander compassionately from the kneading board and its batch of dough to the old, cushioned arm chair by the kitchen stove where Aunt Sabrina customarily sat. This last bereavement had rendered the hired-girl almost sentimental in her attitude toward the stricken old maid—so much so that when young Samantha Lawton dropped in, toward evening, and offered to sit down in this chair, Alvira had sharply warned her to take another.

The girl had brought a note over from Annie to Seth, and was not a little vexed that Alvira should have taken it from her, and gone upstairs to deliver it herself, instead of allowing the messenger to complete her errand. She declined, therefore, to display any interest in the subject of the aged aunt, and warmed her hands over the glowing stove-griddles in silence. The elder Lawton girl, Melissa, resting for a moment from her churning, turned the talk into a more personal channel.

“Fur my part, I think it’s a pesky shame, where there’s three big strappin’ men ’raoun’ th’ haouse, to make a girl wag this old chum-dash till her arms are ready to drop off. ’N’ I’ll tell ’em sao, tew.”

“I sh’d thought Dany’d done it fur yeh” said her younger sister, with a grin. “He allus seemed to me to be soft enough to do all yer work fur yeh, ef you’d let him.”

“Not he! Both he ’n’ Leander ain’t so much’s lifted a finger ’raoun’ th’ haouse to-day. They’re off daown to th’ corners, hangin’ raoun’ th’ store, ’n’ swoppin’ yarns ’baout th’ accident. They wouldn’t keer ’f I churned away here till I spit blood. In th’ mornin’ he’ll be awful sorry, of course, ’n’ swear he furgot all ’baout Wednesday’s bein’ churnin’ day. Thet’s th’ man of it!”

“’N’ I s’pose Milton never does nothin’ ’baout th’ haouse naowadays,” remarked Samantha, interrogatively.

“No, siree!” snapped Alvira. “You bet he daon’t! He’s tew high ’n’ mighty fur thet! Prob’ly he’s furgot so much as th’ name of a churn, even. He might git his broadcloth suit spotted, tew. I wouldn’t dream o’ askin’ him. I’d ruther ask Seth any day then I hed Milton. He don’t put on half so many airs, even if he does git thirty dollars a week in Tecumseh, ’n’ live ’mong ladies ’n’ gentlemen ev’ry day ’f his life.”

Melissa rested from her labors again, to say sneeringly: “Pritty ladies ’n’ gentlemen he use’t to travel with, there in Tecumsy, accordin’ to all accaounts!” Alvira paused in turn, with her arms to the elbow in the floury mixing, and an angry glitter in her little black eyes. “Ef I was some folks, ’n’ hed some folk’s relations in Tecumsy, ’pears to me I’d keep my maouth pritty blamed shut ’baout what goes on there!”

The retort was ample. There was no answering sound, save the muffled splash and thud of Melissa’s vigorously-resumed churning.

The lull in conversation was beginning to grow oppressive when the young visitor asked: “Haow does th’ fine lady take it?”

“She seems more opset than anyone’d given her credit fur,” Alvira answered, sententiously.

Melissa interposed to expand this comment, and rest her arms: “Yes, she seems opset enough. P’raps she is. But then agin, p’raps ef you was young ’n’ good lookin’, with blew eyes ’n’ a lot o’ yalleh hair thet was all yer own, ’n’ you hed a hus-ban’ twice as old as you was, ’n’ he sh’d fall daown ’n’ break his neck, ’n’ leave you a rich young widder, p’raps you’d cry yer eyes aout—when people was lookin’—speshly if thet husban’ o’ yours left a likely young brother who was soft on yeh. When you git as old ’s I be, S’manthy, you’ll learn ther’s a good deal in appear’nces.”

“When she gits as old as you air,” broke in Alvira, sharply, “I hope she’ll learn better ’n’ to blab everythin’ thet comes into her head! You’ll let that cream break, ef yeh don’t look aout!”

“I don’t b’lieve its within an ’aour o’ comin’” said Melissa, wearily resuming her task.

“No, but—reelly,” began Samantha, “is Seth——?”

“Never you mind whether Seth is or whether he isn’t,” answered Alvira. “A young tadpole of a girl like you’s got no business pryin’ ’raoun’ older folks’ affairs. You better go home! M’tildy may need yeh. Yer sister’s got her work to dew, ’n’ so ’ve I.”

This plain intimation produced no effect upon Samantha. She continued to warm her hands, which were already the hue of a red apple with the heat, and remarked: “No, she don’ want me. Annie said I might stay ’s long ’s I wanted to. She said she wanted to be left alone. She’s abaout the wuss broke up girl I ever sot eyes on. You ought to see the way she takes on, though. I bet the widder ain’t a succumstance to her. Ef you’d seen what I saw, ’n’ heern what I heerd this afternoon, I guess you’d think so tew.”

The girl spoke calmly, with a satisfied conviction that nobody would tell her to go home again in a hurry.

“What was it?” came simultaneously from the kneading-board and the churn.

“Oh, I dunnao,—I ain’t much of a han’ to blab everythin’. A young tadpole of a girl like me, yeh knaow, ain’t got no business——”

“Come naow! Don’t be a fool, S’manthy! Ef you’ve got anythin’ to say, spit it aout!”

Thus adjured by the commanding tones of Alvira, the girl trifled no more, but related what she had seen, while hidden behind the thorns. She had a talent for description, and made so much of Annie’s stony face and strange behavior, that she succeeded in producing an effect of mystification upon her listeners scarcely second to that under which she, as an involuntary spectator, had labored. The success of her recital was not lost upon Samantha, as she went on:

“Et was after th’ undertaker’s waggin ’n’ th’ men—some gallus lookin’ young fellers, f’m Tecumsey I guess, was amongst ’em—et was after these’d all gone by, thet I heerd her talk. She kind o’ hid herself in th’ bushes while they was a goin’ by, ’n’ stared at ’em like mad, ez fur’s she c’d folly ’em. Then she bust aout—not a-cryin’ mind yeh, fur she never shed a tear—but wringin’ her han’s ’n’ groanin’ ’n’ actin’ ’s ef she was goin’ to faint. I c’d see her jest ez plain ’s I kin see you stan’in’ there naow, ’n’ heer her, tew. All to onc’t she up ’n’ said——”

The young girl stopped here in the narrative abruptly, with a fine disregard for the consuming interest with which her companions were regarding her; she lifted her nose, and drew two or three leisured sniffs. Then she bent down at the side of the stove and repeated them.

“Ther’s somethin’ burnin’ in thet oven,” she said at last, confidently.

“Et’s th’ barley. I knowed S’briny’d traipse off ’n’ leave it. She allus does;” said Alvira, flinging open the oven door, and dragging out with her apron a smoking pan of scorched grain.

Through the dense, pungent smudge which temporarily filled the room, Samantha was heard to remark with offensive emphasis: “We allus drink genu-wine coffee over to M’tildy’s. She’s mean enough ’baout some things, but she wouldn’t make us swell ourselves aout with no barley-wash.”

“’N’ sao do we here, tew—all but S’briny!” retorted Alvira, indignantly. “She got use’ to drinkin’ it in war-times, when yeh couldn’t git reel coffee fur love n’r money, jes’ ez all th’ other farm-folks did. On’y she’s more contrary ’n’ th’ rest, ’n’ she wouldn’t drink nothin’ else naow, not ef yeh poured it into her maouth with a funnel. But go on ’th yer yarn!”

Samantha had to cough a little, on account of the smoke, and then it took her some moments to............