od that
Gray condescended to call rare, he to whom all things were common.

Her mother made no answer.

"Don't you want I should make a pan of biscuit?" Rose Ellen repeated.
Still there was no reply, and the girl turned to look at her mother in
some alarm.

"Why, mother, what is the matter? why don't you answer me?"

"Your mother's deafness," the minister put in, hurriedly, "seems
suddenly increased: probably a cold,--"

"Was you speakin' to me, Rose Ellen?" said Mrs. Mellen.

"Why, yes!" said the girl, in distress.

"Why, mother, how did you get this cold? you seemed all right when I
went out."

"Gettin' old!" cried Mrs. Mellen. "'Tis nothin' of the sort, Rose
Ellen! I've took a cold, I shouldn't wonder. I went out without my
shawl just for a minute. I expect 'twas careless, but there! life is
too short to be thinkin' all the time about the flesh, 'specially when
there's as much of it as I have. I've ben expectin' I should grow hard
of hearin', though, these two years past. The Bowlers do, you know,
Rose Ellen, 'long about middle life. There was your Uncle Lihu. I can
hear him snort now, sittin' in his chair, like a pig for all the
world, and with no idea he was makin' a sound."

"But it's come on so sudden!" cried Rose Ellen, in distress.

"That's Bowler!" said her mother. "Bowler for all the world! They take
things suddin, whether it's hoarsin' up, or breakin' out, or what it
is. There! you've heard me tell how my Aunt Phoebe 'Lizabeth come out
with spots all over her face, when she was standin' up to be married.
Chicken-pox it was, and they never knew where she got it; but my
grand'ther said 'twas pure Bowler, wherever it come from."

She gazed placidly at her daughter's troubled face; then, patting her
with her broad hand, pushed her gently out of the room before her.

"Mr. Lindsay's heard enough of my bein' hard of hearin', I expect,"
she said, cheerfully, as they passed into the kitchen.

"Don't you fret, Rose Ellen! You won't have to get a fog-horn yet
awhile. I don't know but it would be a good plan for you to mix up a
mess o' biscuit, if you felt to: Mr. Lindsay likes your biscuit real
well, I heard him say so."

"That's what I was going to do," said Rose Ellen, still depressed. "I
wish't you'd see the doctor, mother. I don't believe but he could help
your hearing, if you take it before it's got settled on you."

"Well, I won't, certain!" said Mrs. Mellen. "The idea, strong and well
as I be!