boy, laggard usually in movement, looked up
quickly at Mrs. Reynolds. He knew that Maizie found it difficult to be
patient with him, and that therefore she was offering him and his
sister to the kind-looking lady.

"We like them pretty well, but we'd rather you'd have them," Maizie went
on generously but with unswerving purpose. "And till you get used to
children I'll come over every day and wash and dress them."

Mrs. Reynolds' face was growing pinker and pinker. She continued gazing
at the boy and the girl, and from them back to Suzanna, her favorite.
But whatever emotions surged through her she found for the moment no
words to express them. At last she spoke in a whimsical way.

"It's not much you're asking, little girl, to take and raise and educate
two growing children on Reynolds' wages." And then she blushed furiously
and glanced half apologetically at Mrs. Procter. For what, indeed, was
Mrs. Procter's work? With superb defiance toward mathematical rules, she
was daily engaged in proving that though those rules contended that two
and two make four, if you have backbone and ingenuity two and two make
five, and could by stretching be compelled to make six.

"I must be going," said Mrs. Reynolds. She gathered up carefully the
paper pattern, folded its long length into several pieces, opened her
hand bag and thrust the small package within. "Thank you for your help,
Mrs. Procter. I think I can manage nicely now," she said, as she snapped
the bag together.

Mrs. Procter repeated the conversation to her husband that evening, as,
the children in bed, they sat together in the little parlor. "And it
might be the most wonderful happening in the world, both for the poor
children and for Mrs. Reynolds," said Mrs. Procter.

Mr. Procter did not answer. His wife, watching him keenly, realized that
he was troubled. She put down her sewing. "Tell me, Richard, what's gone
wrong," she said.

He hesitated, caught her hand, held it tight. "I might as well tell you,
dear. John Massey has bought out Job Doane's hardware shop."

"Bought him out?"

"Yes. No one seems to know why. He paid a good price and he'll probably
sell again. I don't know, I'm sure."

He pressed his hand wearily to his head. "What's to be done, dear?
What's to be done? There's no other opening for me in Anchorville."

She rallied to help him as always. "At least we'll not meet trouble till
it's full upon us. There's always some way found."

And, as al