d the neighbors and burn up fuel and oil
in their behalf when you haven't got enough for your own family. I think
you oughtn't to have had four children, and having had them you needn't
have taken another one in, though she's turned out better than I
expected. But all that is none of my business, I suppose, and,
wrong-headed as you are, I like you better than most folks, which isn't
saying much."

"But if you don't share my way of thinking, why do you keep fretting
yourself to come and see us? It only annoys you."

"It annoys me, but I can't help coming, somehow. I guess I hate other
places and other ways worse than I do yours. You don't grudge me bed and
board, I suppose?"

"How could I grudge you anything when you give us so much,--so much more
than we ought to accept, so much more than we can ever thank you for?"

"I don't want to be thanked; you know that well enough; but there's so
much demonstration in your family you can't understand anybody's keeping
themselves exclusive. I don't like to fuss over people or have them fuss
over me. Kissing comes as easy to you as eating, but I never could abide
it. A nasty, common habit, I call it! I want to give what I like and
where and when I like, and act as I'm a mind to afterwards. I don't give
because I see things are needed, but because I can't spend my income
unless I do give. If I could have my way I'd buy you a good house in
Buffalo, right side of mine; take your beggarly little income and manage
it for you; build a six-foot barbed wire fence round the lot so 't the
neighbors couldn't get in and eat you out of house and home, and in a
couple of years I could make something out of your family!"

Mrs. Carey put down her sewing, leaned her head back against the crimson
rambler, and laughed till the welkin rang.

"I suppose you think I'm crazy?" Cousin Ann remarked after a moment's
pause.

"I don't know, Cousin Ann," said Mrs. Carey, taking up her work again.
"Whatever it is, you can't help it! If you'll give up trying to
understand my point of view, I won't meddle with yours!"

"I suppose you won't come to Buffalo?"

"No indeed, thank you, Cousin Ann!"

"You'll stay here, in this benighted village, and grow old,--you that
are a handsome woman of forty and might have a millionaire husband to
take care of you?"

"My husband had money enough to please me, and when I meet him again and
show him the four children, he will be the richest man in Paradise."

Cousin