nice's face. "Don't you see my lookers? I can
see--oh! so nicely!--with my fingers. You know I always could, Janice
Day."

'Rill shook her head and sighed. It was plain the bride was a very
lenient stepmother indeed--perhaps too lenient. She loved Hopewell
Drugg's child so dearly that she could not bear to correct her. Lottie
had always had her own way with her father; and matters had not
changed, Janice could see.

"Mamma 'Rill," Lottie coaxed, patting her step-mother's pink cheek,
"you'll let me sit up longer, 'cause Janice is here--won't you?"

Of course 'Rill could not refuse her. So the child sat there, blinking
at the store lights like a little owl, until finally she sank down in
the old cushioned armchair behind the stove and fell fast asleep.
Occasionally customers came in; but between whiles Janice and the
storekeeper's wife could talk.

The racking "clump, clump, clump," of a big-footed farm horse sounded
without and a woman's nasal voice called a sharp:

"Whoa! Whoa, there! Now, Emmy, you git aout and hitch him to that
there post. Ain't no ring to it? Wal! I don't see what Hope Drugg's
thinkin' of--havin' no rings to his hitchin' posts. He ain't had none
to that one long's I kin remember."

"Here comes Mrs. Si Leggett," said 'Rill to Janice. "She's a
particular woman and I am sorry Hopewell isn't here himself. Usually
she comes in the afternoon. She is late with her Saturday's shopping
this time."

"Take this basket of eggs--easy, now, Emmy!" shrilled the woman's
voice. "Handle 'em careful--handle 'em like they _was_ eggs!"

A heavy step, and a lighter step, on the porch, and then the store door
opened. The woman was tall and raw-boned. She wore a sunbonnet of
fine green and white stripes. Emmy was a lanky child of fourteen or
so, with slack, flaxen hair and a perfectly colorless face.

"Haow-do, Miz' Drugg," said the newcomer, putting a large basket of
eggs carefully on the counter. "What's Hopewell givin' for eggs
to-day?"

"Just what everybody else is, Mrs. Leggett. Twenty-two cents. That's
the market price."

"Wal--seems ter me I was hearin' that Mr. Sprague daowntown was
a-givin' twenty-three," said the customer slowly.

"Perhaps he is, Mrs. Leggett. But Mr. Drugg cannot afford to give even
a penny above the market price. Of course, either cash or trade--just
as you please."

"Wal, I want some things an' I wasn't kalkerlatin' to go 'way daowntown
ter-night--it's