--She doesn't know he would like to--he don't want she should be
worried--and, anyhow, as 'tis, he can't earn enough to keep ahead of all
the doctors cost."

"But the right kind of a wife--a good, competent girl--could help out by
earning something, too."

Ev'leen Ann looked at me forlornly, with no surprise. The idea was
evidently not new to her. "Yes, ma'am, she could. But 'Niram says he
ain't the kind of man to let his wife go out working." Even while she
dropped under the killing verdict of his pride she was loyal to his
standards and uttered no complaint. She went on, "'Niram wants Aunt
Em'line to have things the way she wants 'em, as near as he can give
'em to her--and it's right she should."

"Aunt Emeline?" I repeated, surprised at her absence of mind. "You mean
Mrs. Purdon, don't you?"

Ev'leen Ann looked vexed at her slip, but she scorned to attempt any
concealment. She explained dryly, with the shy, stiff embarrassment our
country people have in speaking of private affairs: "Well, she _is_ my
Aunt Em'line, Mrs. Purdon is, though I don't hardly ever call her that.
You see, Aunt Emma brought me up, and she and Aunt Em'line don't have
anything to do with each other. They were twins, and when they were
girls they got edgeways over 'Niram's father, when 'Niram was a baby and
his father was a young widower and come courting. Then Aunt Em'line
married him, and Aunt Emma never spoke to her afterward."

Occasionally, in walking unsuspectingly along one of our leafy lanes,
some such fiery geyser of ancient heat uprears itself in a boiling
column. I never get used to it, and started back now.

"Why, I never heard of that before, and I've known your Aunt Emma and
Mrs. Purdon for years!"

"Well, they're pretty old now," said Ev'leen Ann listlessly, with the
natural indifference of self-centered youth to the bygone tragedies of
the preceding generation. "It happened quite some time ago. And both of
them were so touchy, if anybody seemed to speak about it, that folks got
in the way of letting it alone. First Aunt Emma wouldn't speak to her
sister because she'd married the man she'd wanted, and then when Aunt
Emma made out so well farmin' and got so well off, why, then Mrs. Purdon
wouldn't try to make up because she was so poor. That was after Mr.
Purdon had had his stroke of paralysis and they'd lost their farm and
she'd taken to goin' out sewin'--not but what she was always perfectly
satisfied with her bargain. She