ran in and out, in
and out, faster than ever, "would you, now? Well, then . . . there's a
fair at Milford this blessed afternoon."

"Would you go along?" asked Mrs. Grumble.

"Glory," said Miss Beal.

"I was going anyhow," said Mrs. Grumble.

Then Miss Beal began to giggle. "Well, I declare," she remarked, "I
feel that young."

"Go away," said Mrs. Grumble; "to hear you talk . . ." She was in the
best of humor.

"All the young folks will be there," said Miss Beal. "I heard as how
Alec Stove was going with Susie Ploughman. And there's Thomas
Frye . . . and Anna Barly . . ."

"Yes," said Mrs. Grumble.

Miss Beal held up her thread against the light. "There's a queer
thing," she admitted. "I can't make head nor tail of it. Do you think
there's an understanding between them, Mrs. Grumble?"

"If there is," said Mrs. Grumble, "then Thomas has more sense than I
gave him credit for. Because how any one could have an understanding
with that wild thing, is more than I can see."

"How she carries on," agreed Miss Beal, "first with Noel, when he was
alive, and now with him."

"Ah," remarked Mrs. Grumble, "those are the new ideas. She has her
head full of them. Only the other day, down to the store, I heard her
say to Mr. Frye: 'It's the old who are always getting the young into
trouble.'"

"Just think of that," said Miss Beal.

"To my way of thinking," continued Mrs. Grumble, "the shoe is on the
other foot. What with the young folks growing up so wild, we must all
be as busy as thieves to keep what belongs to us."

"And what belongs to us, Mrs. Grumble?" asked the dressmaker, lifting
from her lap a dress designed for Mrs. Sneath, the butcher's wife.

"No more than what we can get," replied Mrs. Grumble, with a shake of
her head. "And that's little enough."

"Then," said Miss Beal, "what do you think Anna Barly meant by saying
'twas the old had got her into trouble?"

"Why, bless your soul," said Mrs. Grumble.

Miss Beal, from the front of her chair, regarded her friend with round
and serious eyes. "I don't rightly know, Mrs. Grumble," she said, "but
I came on her yesterday, and I declare if she hadn't been crying. Last
night I dreamed old Mrs. Tomkins died. And you know, Mrs. Grumble,
dream of the dead . . ."

"Go away," said Mrs. Grumble.

"Mind," quoth Miss Beal, "I don't mean to say there's anything as
shouldn't be. Still, nothing would surprise me."

"There's no use talking," crie