seen since the winter before, and while she
worked she discussed neighborhood matters with them, the pleasing
sizzle of eggs frying on a hot pan making a running accompaniment to
her words.

The guests at Mrs. Corbett's table were a typical pioneer group--
homesteaders, speculators, machine men journeying through the country
to sell machinery to harvest the grain not yet grown; the farmer has
ever been well endowed with hope, and the machine business flourishes.

Mrs. Corbett could talk and work at the same time, her sudden
disappearances from the room as she replenished the table merely
serving as punctuation marks, and not interfering with the thread of
the story at all.

When she was compelled by the exigencies of the case to be present in
the kitchen, and therefore absent in the dining-room, she merely
elevated her voice to overcome distance, and dropped no stitch in the
conversation.

"New neighbor, is it, you are sayin', Tom? 'Deed and I have, and her
the purtiest little trick you ever saw--diamond rings on her, and silk
skirts, and plumes on her hat, and hair as yalla as gold."

"When she comes over here I can't be doin' my work for lookin' at her.
She was brought up with slathers of money." This came back from the
"cheek of the dure", where Mrs. Corbett was emptying the tea leaves from
the teapot. "But the old man, beyant, ain't been pleased with her since
she married this Fred chap--he wouldn't ever look at Fred, nor let him
come to the house, and so she ran away with him, and no one could blame
her either for that, and now her and the old man don't write at all, at
all--reach me the bread plate in front of you there, Jim--and there's
bad blood between them. I can see, though, her and the old man are fond
o' one another!"

"Is her man anything like the twin pirates?" asked Sam Moggey from Oak
Creek; "because if he is I don't blame the old man for being mad about
it." Sam was helping himself to another quarter of vinegar pie as he
spoke.

Mrs. Corbett could not reply for a minute, for she was putting a new
bandage on Jimmy MacCaulay's finger, and she had the needle and thread
in her mouth.

"Not a bit like them, Sam," she said, as soon as she had the bandage in
place, and as she put in quick stitches; "no more like them than day is
like night--he's only a half-brother, and a lot younger. He's a
different sort altogether from them two murderin' villains that sits in
the house all day playin' cards. He'