much difference in Ma Sill, nor yet in
Sam and Sim; they seemed sort of permanent, don't you know, like the old
well-sweep, or the big willows. I s'pose when Ma was laid away the boys
commenced to feel as if they was two minds as well as two bodies. You
don't know what started them actin' this way?"

Miss Sands reflected a moment.

"I shouldn't be surprised," she said, "if it was their vests."

"Their vests?" repeated Calvin.

"Yes! You noticed Cousin Sam had on a red one and Cousin Sim a black
one? Well--but suppose I tell you my end of it, Mr. Parks, just as it
come to me."

"I should be fairly pleased to death if you would!" said Calvin Parks.
"That's what I've been layin' for right along. Yes, I spotted them vests
first thing, I guess it's the first stitch ever they had on that was
anyways different. Well! you was going to say?"

Mary Sands was silent a moment, gazing thoughtfully at the blue platter
she held.

"I'm a lone woman!" she said at last. "I was an only child, and parents
died when I was but young. I've kept house these ten years for my uncle
over to Tupham Corners. He was a widower with one son, and a real good
man; like a father to me, he was. Last year he died, and left the farm
to Reuben,--that was his son,--and the schooner, a coasting schooner he
was owner of, to me. I expect he thought--" she paused, and a bright
color crept into her warm brown cheek; "well," she continued, "anyhow,
Reuben and I didn't hit it off real well, and I left. I was staying with
friends when a letter come from Cousins statin' their Ma had passed
away and would I come to keep house for them. I'd never visited here,
but Cousin Lucindy was own cousin to my mother, and we'd met at
conference and like that, but yet I'd never seen the boys. Well, I
thought about it a spell, and I thought I'd come and try, and if we
suited, well and good, and if not there'd be no bones broke. So I packed
up and come over by the stage. Well!"

She stopped to laugh, a little mellow tinkling laugh. "I guess I sha'n't
forget my first sight of Cousins. I come up the steps kind of quiet. The
door stood open, and I knocked and waited a minute, hearin' voices; then
I stepped inside the hall. The front sittin'-room door was open too, and
Cousins was standin' back to it, them same brown backs, each one the
other over again, and one of them was holdin' a red vest in each hand.
I coughed, but they didn't hear me, and he went right on speakin'.

"'M