th. "What of it?" she asked. "That roof never was good,
even back in the days when 'twas a private house and my great-uncle lived
in it."

Miss Molly fluttered still more before the awfulness of her next
announcement.

"Well, the talk is that the town won't vote a cent toward repairs."

"They'll have to! You can't get along without a library!"

"No, they won't. The talk is that the men won't vote to have the town give
a bit of money for shingles. No, nor to pay somebody to take the place of
Ellen Monroe as librarian. She's got work in the print mill at
Johnsonville and is going to move down there to be near her mother's
family."

"Oh, _talk_!" said Miss Abigail with the easy contempt she had for things
outside her garden hedge. "Haven't you heard men talk before?"

"But they say really they _won't!_ They say nobody ever goes into it any
more when the summer folks go away in the autumn."

Miss Abigail's gesture indicated that the thing was unthinkable. "What's
the matter with young folks nowadays, anyhow? They always used to run
there and chatter till you couldn't hear yourself think."

Miss Molly lowered her voice like a person coming to the frightening
climax of a ghost story. "Miss Abigail, they _ain't_ any young folks here
any more!"

"What do you call the Pitkin girls!" demanded the other.

"They were the very last ones and they and their mother have decided
they'll move to Johnsonville this fall."

Miss Abigail cried out in energetic disapproval, "What in the Lord's world
are the Pitkinses going to move away from Greenford for! They belong
here!"

Miss Molly marshaled the reasons with a sad swiftness, "There aren't any
music pupils left for the oldest one, the two next have got positions in
the print mill and little Sarah is too old for the school here any more."

Miss Abigail shook her head impatiently as though to brush away a
troublesome gnat. "How about the Leavitts? There ought to be enough young
ones in that or family to--"

"They moved to Johnsonville last week, going to rent their house to city
folks in the summer, the way all the rest here in the street do. They
didn't want to go a bit. Eliza felt dreadful about it, but what can they
do? Ezra hasn't had enough carpentering to do in the last six months to
pay their grocery bill, and down in Johnsonville they can't get carpenters
enough. Besides, all the children's friends are there, and they got so
lonesome here winters."

Miss Abigail qu