efore, what are we goin' to do about
it?"

Mrs. Martin's only reply was a look of bewilderment and distress. It was
evident to Mrs. Williams that she would have to answer her own
question, but she delayed, for there were still a few well considered
diplomatic remarks that it might be well to use before the climax was
brought on. "Now, I don't want you to answer me, Mrs. Martin. You
couldn't be expected to answer that question on such short notice as
this. Many's the night I've stayed awake till long after the clock
struck twelve askin' myself what could be done about it, and the only
thing I can think of is this."

She paused. Mrs. Martin was listening eagerly. The time had come for the
final charge.

"Don't you think, Mrs. Martin,"--there was an anxious, beseeching note
in the speaker's voice,--"don't you think that you and me might manage
to live together? Your house is big enough for two, and it's a double
house, with a hall runnin' through the middle, so you can live on one
side and me on the other. And if you'll let me come and live in one side
of your house, I'll deed my house to Henry and Anna Belle, and they can
get married with a clear conscience. You and me can be company for each
other, and we've each got enough money to supply our wants; and I'll
keep house on my side of the hall, and you'll keep house on your side,
and there's no need of our ever fallin' out or interferin' with each
other."

There! the deed was done, and the doer of the deed, pale with
consternation over her own daring, sat waiting a reply.

But no reply came. Apparently Mrs. Martin had not heard her words, for
she was looking beyond her visitor with the dreamy gaze of one who sees,
but not with the eye of flesh. Was she considering the question, or was
her silence a rebuke to an officious meddler? Mrs. Williams' heart was
beating as it used to beat on Friday afternoons when she stood up to
read her composition before the school, and she tingled from head to
foot with a flush of shame.

"I don't know what you think of me for makin' such a proposition to
you," she stammered. "You'll never know what it costs me to say what
I've said, and I never could have said it, if it hadn't been for that
nightgown put away in the bottom drawer, and the look in Anna Belle's
eyes."

Still Mrs. Martin did not speak. The piteous humiliation in her
visitor's eyes deepened. She must make one more effort to break the ice
of that cruel silence.

"It's