ch, I am told, is enough to make
anybody sick to look at it, is bound to have some sort of an effect upon
a person."

Mrs. Cliff smiled. She was used to this sort of talk from Nancy Shott.
"I am better than I was two years ago," she said, "and the last time I
was weighed I found that I had gained seven pounds."

"Well, there is no accounting for that," said her visitor, "except as we
grow old we are bound to show it, and sometimes aging looks like bad
health, and as to fat, that often comes as years go on, though as far as
I am concerned, I think it is a great misfortune to have more to carry,
as you get less and less able to carry it."

Mrs. Cliff might have said that that sort of thing would not be likely
to trouble Miss Shott, whose scantily furnished frame was sure to become
thinner and thinner as she became older and weaker, but she merely
smiled and waited to hear what would come next.

"I do not want to worry you," said Miss Shott; "but several people that
were here last night said you was not looking as they had hoped to see
you look, and I will just say to you, if it is anything connected with
your appetite, with a feeling of goneness in the mornings, you ought to
buy a quassia cup and drink the full of it at least three times a day."

Miss Shott knew that Mrs. Cliff absolutely detested the taste of
quassia. Mrs. Cliff was not annoyed. She hoped that her visitor would
soon get through with these prefatory remarks and begin to take the
stand, whatever it might be, which she had come there that morning to
take.

"There has been sickness here since you last left," said Miss Shott,
"and it has been where it was least to be expected, too. Barney
Thompson's little boy, the second son, has had the diphtheria, and where
he got it nobody knows, for it was vacation time, and he did not go to
school, and there was no other diphtheria anywhere in all this town, and
yet he had it and had it bad."

"He did not die?" said Mrs. Cliff.

"Oh no, he got over it, and perhaps it was a bad case and perhaps it was
not; but you may be sure I did not go near it, for I considered it my
duty to keep away, and I did keep away, but the trouble is--"

"And did none of the other children take it?" asked Mrs. Cliff.

"No, they didn't. But the trouble is, that when diphtheria or anything
like it comes up suddenly like this, without any reason that nobody can
see, it is just as likely to come up again without any reason, and I am
ex