ersonally,
she preferred the custard, but she did not propose to call it custard
cream. It was not correct. Why persist in misstatements and
inaccuracies when one knew better? So Agatha said iced cream when she
meant it, and frozen custard, when custard it was, but every other
woman in the neighbourhood, had she acted as she felt, would have
slapped Agatha's face when she said it: this both Adam and Kate well
knew, so it made Kate laugh despite the fact that she would not have
offended Agatha purposely.

"I think--I think," said Agatha, "that Nancy Ellen has much upon which
to congratulate herself. More education would not injure her, but she
has enough that if she will allow her ambition to rule her and study in
private and spend her spare time communing with the best writers, she
can make an exceedingly fair intellectual showing, while she surely is
a handsome woman. With a good home and such a fine young professional
man as she has had the good fortune to attract, she should immediately
put herself at the head of society in Hartley and become its leader to
a much higher moral and intellectual plane than it now occupies."

"Bet she has a good time," said young Adam. "He's awful nice."

"Son," said Agatha, "'awful,' means full of awe. A cyclone, a
cloudburst, a great conflagration are awful things. By no stretch of
the imagination could they be called nice."

"But, Ma, if a cyclone blew away your worst enemy wouldn't it be nice?"

Adam, Jr., and Kate laughed. Not the trace of a smile crossed Agatha's
pale face.

"The words do not belong in contiguity," she said. "They are
diametrically opposite in meaning. Please do not allow my ears to be
offended by hearing you place them in propinquity again."

"I'll try not to, Ma," said young Adam; then Agatha smiled on him
approvingly. "When did you meet Mr. Gray, Katherine?" she asked.

"On the foot-log crossing the creek beside Lang's line fence. Near the
spot Nancy Ellen first met him I imagine."

"How did you recognize him?"

"Nancy Ellen had just been showing me his picture and telling me about
him. Great Day, but she's in love with him!"

"And so he is with her, if Lang's conclusions from his behaviour can be
depended upon. They inform me that he can be induced to converse on no
other subject. The whole arrangement appeals to me as distinctly
admirable."

"And you should see the lilac bush and the cabbage roses," said Kate.
"And the strangest t