hatever is not done for her is not our
business. It's my private opinion, however, that she's had a good deal
already!"

"Well," said Mrs. Ferguson, "I suppose that what you say is all
right,--at least I've no objections to any of it; but whoever's going to
speak to her, it mustn't be me, because she knows I've daughters to
educate, and she'd naturally think that if I spoke I was principally
speaking for myself, and that would set her against me, which I wouldn't
do for the world. And whatever other people may say, I believe she will
have money to leave."

Miss Cushing hesitated for a moment, and then spoke up boldly.

"It's my opinion," said she, "that Miss Inchman is the proper person to
speak to Mrs. Cliff on this important subject. She's known her all her
life, from the time when they were little girls together, and when they
were both grown she made sacrifices for her which none of the rest of us
had the chance to make.

"Now, for Miss Inchman to go and open the subject in a gradual and
friendly way would be the right and proper thing, no matter how you look
at it, and it's my opinion that we who are now here should ask her to go
and speak, not in our names perhaps, but out of good-will and kindness
to us as well as to Mrs. Cliff."

Mrs. Wells was a lady who was in the habit of saying things at the wrong
time, and she now remarked, "We've forgotten the Thorpedykes! You know,
Mrs. Cliff--"

Miss Cushing leaned forward, her face reddened. "Bother the
Thorpedykes!" she exclaimed. "They're no more than acquaintances, and
ought not to be spoken of at all. And as for Mrs. Perley, if any one's
thinking of her, she's only been here four years, and that gives her no
claim whatever, considering that we've been lifelong friends and
neighbors of Sarah Cliff.

"And now, in behalf of all of us, I ask you, Miss Inchman, will you
speak to Mrs. Cliff?"

Miss Inchman was rather a small woman, spare in figure, and she wore
glasses, which seemed to be of a peculiar kind, for while they enabled
her to see through them into surrounding space, they did not allow
people who looked at her to see through them into her eyes. People often
remarked that you could not tell the color of Miss Inchman's eyes when
she had her spectacles on.

Thus it was that although her eyes were sometimes brighter than at other
times, and this could be noticed through her spectacles, it was
difficult to understand her expression and to discover whethe