on be before she is grown up?" I asked gravely.

"Humph! That depends. Some are grown up when they're born, and others
ain't grown up when they're eighty. That same Mrs. Roderick I was
speaking of never grew up. She was as foolish when she was a hundred
as when she was ten."

"Perhaps that's why she lived so long," I suggested. All thought of
seeking sympathy in Aunt Philippa had vanished. I resolved I would not
even mention Mark's name.

"Mebbe 'twas," admitted Aunt Philippa with a grim smile. "_I'd_ rather
live fifty sensible years than a hundred foolish ones."

Much to my relief, she made no further reference to my affairs. As we
rounded a curve in the road where two great over-arching elms met, a
buggy wheeled by us, occupied by a young man in clerical costume. He
had a pleasant boyish face, and he touched his hat courteously. Aunt
Philippa nodded very frostily and gave her horse a quite undeserved
cut.

"There's a man you don't want to have much to do with," she said
portentously. "He's a Methodist minister."

"Why, Auntie, the Methodists are a very nice denomination," I
protested. "My stepmother is a Methodist, you know."

"No, I didn't know, but I'd believe anything of a stepmother. I've no
use for Methodists or their ministers. This fellow just came last
spring, and it's _my_ opinion he smokes. And he thinks every girl who
looks at him falls in love with him--as if a Methodist minister was
any prize! Don't you take much notice of him, Ursula."

"I'll not be likely to have the chance," I said, with an amused smile.

"Oh, you'll see enough of him. He boards at Mrs. John Callman's, just
across the road from us, and he's always out sunning himself on her
verandah. Never studies, of course. Last Sunday they say he preached
on the iron that floated. If he'd confine himself to the Bible and
leave sensational subjects alone it would be better for him and his
poor congregation, and so I told Mrs. John Callman to her face. I
should think _she_ would have had enough of his sex by this time. She
married John Callman against her father's will, and he had delirious
trembles for years. That's the men for you."

"They're not _all_ like that, Aunt Philippa," I protested.

"Most of 'em are. See that house over there? Mrs. Jane Harrison lives
there. Her husband took tantrums every few days or so and wouldn't get
out of bed. She had to do all the barn work till he'd got over his
spell. That's men for you. When he died,