f breaking when the weather's down to zero and up to a hundred.
That's what I hope!"

'Zekiel grinned. "You want 'em to try the cold place and the hot one
too, do you?"

"Yes I do, and to stay in the one that hurts the most. The man that uses
a decent check-rein on his horse," continued Mrs. Forbes, dropping into
a philosophizing tone, "is apt to be as decent to his wife. The doctor
would be a great catch for that girl, and I _think_," dropping her
voice, "her mother'd be liable to live with 'em."

"You're keeping that dark from the doctor, I s'pose?" remarked 'Zekiel.

"H'm. You needn't think I go chattering around that house the way I do
out here. I've got a great talent, if I do say it, for minding my own
business."

"Good enough," drawled 'Zekiel. "I heard tell once of a firm that made a
great fortune just doing that one thing."

"Don't you be sassy now. I've always waited on Mr. Evringham while he
ate his meals, and that's the time he'd often speak out to me about
things if he felt in the humor, so that in all these years 't isn't any
wonder if I've come to feel that his business is mine too."

"Just so," returned 'Zekiel, with a twinkle in his eye.

"It's been as plain as your nose that the interlopers don't like to have
me there. Not that they have anything special against me, but they'd
like to have someone younger and stylisher to hand them their plates.
I'll never forget one night when they'd been here about a week, and I
think Mr. Evringham had begun to suspect they were fixtures,--I'd felt
it from the first,--Mrs. Evringham said, 'Why father, does Mrs. Forbes
always wait on your table? I had supposed she was temporarily taking the
place of your butler or your waitress.'"

The housekeeper's effort to imitate the airy manner she remembered
caused her son to chuckle as he gathered up the shining harness.

"You should have seen the look Mr. Evringham gave her. Just as if he
didn't see her at all. 'Yes,' he answered, 'I hope Mrs. Forbes will wait
on my table as long as I have one.' And I will if I have my health,"
added the speaker, bridling with renewed pleasure at the memory of that
triumphant moment. "They think I'm a machine without any feelings or
opinions, and that I've been wound up to suit Mr. Evringham and run
his establishment, and that I'm no more to be considered than the big
Westminster clock on the stairs. Mrs. Evringham did try once to get into
my employer's rooms and look after his clot