s
reaching out and learning house jobs. I think it takes her mind offen
her troubles and I can't say her no if it do help her, not that I want
to, for she's a real comfort."

"Well, if it was me I couldn't take no comfort in a play-acting girl.
I'd feel like locking up what teaspoons I had and a-counting over
everything in my house every day. It's just like you, Mis' Mayberry, to
take her in. And I can't sense the why of you're being so close-mouthed
about her. Near neighbors oughter know all about one another's doings
and not have to ask, I say." Mrs. Peavey sniffed and assumed an air of
injured patience.

"Why, Hettie Ann," Mother hastened to answer, "you know as I always did
hold that the give and take of advice from friends is the greatest
comfort in the world, though at times most confusing, and I thought I
told you all about Elinory."

"Well, you didn't. Muster been Bettie Pratt or Mis' Pike you was
a-talking to when you thought it was me," answered her friend with the
injured note in her voice becoming with every word more noticeable.
"Are she rich or poor? Do you know that much?"

"Well now, come to think of it, I don't," answered Mother promptly.
"Connecting up folks and they money always looks like sticking a price
tag on you to them and them to you. I'd rather charge my friends to a
Heaven-account and settle the bill with friendly feelings as we go
along. This poor child ain't got no mother or father, that I know. All
her young life when most girls ain't got a thought above a beau or a
bonnet, she have been a-training of her voice to sing great 'cause it
were in her to do it. And she done it, too. Then all to onct when she
had got done singing in a great big town hall they call Convent Garden
or something up in New York, she made the mistake to drink a glass of
ice water and it friz up her throat chords. She haven't been able to
sing one single tune since. She have been a-roaming over the earth
a-hunting for some sort of help and ain't found none. Now she have lit
at my door and I've got her in trying to warm and comfort her to enough
strength for Tom to put her voice back into her."

"Well, you don't expect no such thing of Tom Mayberry as that, do you?"
asked Mrs. Peavey with uncompromising and combative frankness.

"That I do," answered the Doctor's mother, and this time there was a
note of dignity in her voice, as she looked her friend straight in the
face. "You know, because I told you about it, H