them a sitting room in
pleasant weather. Mrs. Callender clung to one luxury persistently--there
was always a grate fire in the back parlor on cold evenings.

To this back parlor came Phillida with a disagreeable sense that Mrs.
Hilbrough's retreating carriage was rousing the quiet neighborhood as
the sleepy and impatient coachman banged his way over the pavement, the
hummocky irregularities of which saved this thoroughfare from all
traffic that could avoid it; for only the drivers of reckless butcher
carts, and one or two shouting milkmen, habitually braved its perils.

Phillida, as she approached the old-fashioned mahogany door of the back
parlor, in the dim light shed by the half-turned-down gas jet at the
other end of the hall, raised her hand to the knob; but it eluded her,
for the door was opened from within by some one who stood behind it.
Then the head of a girl of seventeen with long, loose blond tresses
peered around the edge of the door as Phillida entered.

"Come in, Philly, and tell us all about it," was the greeting she got
from her sister, clad in a red wrapper covering her night-dress, and
shod with worsted bedroom slippers. "Mama wanted me to go to bed; but I
knew you'd have something interesting to tell about the Hilbroughs, and
so I stuck it out and kept mama company while she did the mending. Come
now, Philly, tell me everything all at once."

The mother sat by the drop-light mending a stocking, and she looked up
at Phillida with a gentle, brightening expression of pleasure--that
silent welcome of affection for which the daughters always looked on
entering.

"What, mama, not in bed yet?" exclaimed Phillida, as she laid off her
outer garments, and proceeded to bend over and kiss her mother, trying
to take away her work at the same time. "Come now, you ought to be in
bed; and, besides, this old stocking of mine is darned all over already,
and ought to be thrown away."

"Ah, Phillida," said her mother with a sweet, entreating voice, holding
fast to the stocking all the time, "if it gives me pleasure let me do
it. If I like to save old things I'm sure it's no harm."

"But you ought to have been in bed at nine o'clock," said Phillida, her
hold on the stocking weakening perceptibly under the spell of her
mother's irresistible entreaty.

"It will take but a minute more if you will let me alone," was all the
mother said as Phillida released the work, and the elaborate darning
went on.

"There's a g