t of her natural amiability and
tolerance. She was sometimes indirectly reproachful of her daughter's
easy-going ways, and set an indignant example now and then by a famous
onslaught of unnecessary work, and always dressed and behaved herself
in plainest farm fashion, while Mrs. Tobias was given to undue
worldliness and style. But they worked well together in the main, for,
to use Mercy's own words, she "had seen enough of life not to want to
go into other folks' houses and make trouble."

As people grow older their interests are apt to become fewer, and one
of the thoughts that came oftenest to Mercy Bascom in her old age was
a time-honored quarrel with one of her husband's sisters, who had been
her neighbor many years before, and then moved to greater prosperity
at the other side of the county. It is not worth while to tell the
long story of accusations and misunderstandings, but while the two
women did not meet for almost half a lifetime the grievance was as
fresh as if it were yesterday's. Wrongs of defrauded sums of money and
contested rights in unproductive acres of land, wrongs of slighting
remarks and contempt of equal claims; the remembrance of all these was
treasured as a miser fingers his gold. Mercy Bascom freed herself from
the wearisome detail of every-day life whenever she could find a
patient listener to whom to tell the long story. She found it as
interesting as a story of the Arabian Nights, or an exciting play at
the theatre. She would have you believe that she was faultless in the
matter, and would not acknowledge that her sister-in-law Ruth Bascom,
now Mrs. Parlet, was also a hard-working woman with dependent little
children at the time of the great fray. Of late years her son had
suspected that his mother regretted the alienation, but he knew better
than to suggest a peace-making. "Let them work--let them work!" he
told his wife, when she proposed one night to bring the warring
sisters-in-law unexpectedly together. It may have been that old Mercy
began to feel a little lonely and would be glad to have somebody of
her own age with whom to talk over old times. She never had known the
people much in this Bassett region, and there were few but young folks
left at any rate.

As the pleasure-makers hastened toward the fair that bright October
morning Mercy sat by the table sewing at a sufficient patch in the old
coat. There was little else to do all day but to get herself a
luncheon at noon and have su