ace of Natur' besides a cow.

"View, indeed!" she pursued, hotly. "If I've got to look at views, I want
plenty of 'life' in 'em; and I want the human figgers to be right up close
in the foreground, too!"

'Phemie laughed. "And I think it would be just _blessed_ to get out of
this noisy, dirty city, and live in a place like Hillcrest. Wouldn't you
like it, Lyd?"

"I'd love it!" declared her sister.

"Well, I declare!" exclaimed Aunt Jane, sitting bolt upright, and looking
actually startled. "Ain't that a way out, mebbe?"

"What do you mean, Aunt Jane?" asked Lydia, quickly.

"You know how I'm fixed, girls. Hammond left me just money enough so't
I can live as I like to live--and no more. The farm's never been aught
but an expense to me. Cyrus Pritchett is supposed to farm a part of it
on shares; but my share of the crops never pays more'n the taxes and the
repairs to the roofs of the old buildings.

"It'd be a shelter to ye. The furniture stands jest as it did in the old
doctor's day. Ye could move right in--and I expect it would mean a lease
of life to your father.

"A second-hand man wouldn't give ye ten dollars for your stuff in that
flat. It's ruined. Ye couldn't live comfortable there any more. But if
ye wanter go to Hillcrest I'm sure ye air more than welcome to the use of
the place, and perhaps ye might git a bigger share of the crops out of
Cyrus if ye was there, than I've been able to git.

"What d'you say, girls--what d'you say?"

CHAPTER III

THE DOCTOR DISPOSES

The Bray girls scarcely slept a wink that night. Not alone were they
excited by the incidents of the evening, and the sudden illness of
their father; but the possibilities arising out of Aunt Jane Hammond's
suggestion fired the imagination of both Lyddy and 'Phemie.

These sisters were eminently practical girls, and they came of practical
stock--as note the old-fashioned names which their unromantic parents had
put upon them in their helpless infancy.

Yet there is a dignity to "Lydia" and a beauty to "Euphemia" which the
thoughtless may not at once appreciate.

Practical as they were, the thought of going to the old farmhouse to
live--if their father could be moved to it at once--added a zest to their
present situation which almost made their misfortune seem a blessing.

Their furniture was spoiled, as Aunt Jane had said. And father was sick--a
self-evident fact. This sudden ill turn which Mr. Bray had suffered
worried both