er. Miss Wynne expects to
live in an apartment after she is married and she has a little one of
her own now. If you'll come with me we'll find some place that you'll
like. I don't want to leave you alone here."

[Sidenote: Under One Roof]

"No," she answered, after due deliberation, "I reckon I'll stay here.
You can't transplant an old tree and you can't take a woman who has
lived all her life in a house and put her in a place where there are
several cottages all under one roof with bedrooms off of kitchens and
folks washin' in the sinks. Miss Wynne can do it if she likes, but I was
brought up different."

"I'm afraid you'll be lonesome."

"I don't know why I should be any more lonesome than I always have been.
All I see of you is at meals and while you're readin' nights. You're
just like your pa. If I propped up a book by the lamp, it would be just
as sociable as it is to have you settin' here. Readin' is a good thing
in its place and I enjoy it myself, but sometimes it's pleasant to hear
the human voice sayin' somethin' besides 'What?' and 'Yes' and 'All
right' and 'Is supper ready?'

[Sidenote: The Blue Hair Ribbon]

"I've been lookin' over your things to-day and gettin' 'em ready. The
moths has ate your Winter flannels and you'll have to get more. I've
mended your coat linin's and sewed on buttons, and darned and patched,
and I've took Barbara North's blue hair ribbon back to her--the one you
found some place and had in your pocket. You mustn't be careless about
those things, Roger--she might think you meant to steal it."

"What did Barbara say?" he stammered. The high colour had mounted to his
temples.

"She didn't know what to say at first, but she recognised it as her hair
ribbon. I told her you hadn't meant to steal it--that you'd just found
it somewheres and had forgot to give it to her, and it was all right.
She laughed some, but it was a funny laugh. You must be careful,
Roger--you won't always have your mother to get you out of scrapes."

Roger wondered if the knot of blue ribbon that had so strangely gone
back to Barbara had, by any chance, carried to her its intangible
freight of dreams and kisses, with a boyish tear or two, of which he had
the grace not to be ashamed.

"Your pa was in the habit of annexin' female belongin's, though the Lord
knows where he ever got 'em. I suppose he picked 'em up on the
street--he was so dreadful absent-minded. He was systematic about 'em in
a way, though. Aft