them bonds straight after father died
'n' locked 'em up 'n' I ain't never unlocked 'em since?"

Mrs. Lathrop assented with a single rapt nod.

"Well, when I explained to Mr. Weskin as I 'd got to have money 'n' how
was the best way to sell a bond, he just looked at me, 'n' what do you
think he said--what _do_ you think he said, Mrs. Lathrop?"

Mrs. Lathrop hung far out over the window-sill--her gaze was the gaze of
the ever earnest and interested.

Susan stood below. Her face was aglow with the joy of the affluent--her
very voice might have been for once entitled as silvery.

"He said, Mrs. Lathrop, he said, 'Miss Clegg, why don't you go down to
the bank and cut your coupons?'"

* * * * *

A VERY SUPERIOR MAN

Miss Clegg sat in Mrs. Lathrop's rocking-chair, on Mrs. Lathrop's
kitchen stoop. Mrs. Lathrop sat at her friend's feet, picking over
currants. If she picked over a great many she intended making jelly; if
only a few, the result was to be a pie.

Susan had on her bonnet and mitts and held her sun-umbrella firmly
gripped between her two hands and her two knees. She looked weary and
worn.

"It seems kind o' funny that I bothered to go, now that I come to think
it over," she said, gazing meditatively down upon her friend and her
friend's currant-picking; "I wa'n't no relation of Rufus Timmans, 'n'
although I don't deny as it 's always a pleasure to go to any one's
funeral, still it's a long ways to Meadville, 'n' the comin' back was
most awful, not to speak o' havin' no dinner nowhere. It never makes no
one brisk but a horse to go without eatin', 'n' I must in consequence
say 't I was really very sorry as Rufus was dead durin' the last part of
the drive; but o' course he was a very superior man, 'n' as a
consequence nobody wanted to have it said in after life as they wa'n't
to his buryin'. So I went along with the rest, 'n' Heaven help me now,
for I never was more beat out in all my life. I was up awful early this
mornin' to be sure o' not bein' left, 'n' I may in confidence remark as
I 've thought many times to-day as if I had been left I 'd of been a
sight better off. Long rides is very frisky for them as is young 'n' in
love 'n' likes to drive alternate, but for a woman o' my age, bein'
wedged solid for sixteen miles at a time is most tryin'; 'n' comin' back
some o' them smart Meadville boys had the fine idea o' puttin' walnuts