out a tear. No
offspring had she over whose death to mourn, and now she was put to for
a companion piece to sorrow. But her mind flew back to a time when there
died a man whom she could have loved, and her tears came full with the
memory of a blissful morning when at church he had tied her horse and
walked with her to the door. She had forgotten his name, if indeed she
had ever been possessed of it, but she spoke of him as "he" as fast as
her tears were falling.

"Ah, Lord, Sister Starbuck, I don't want to question the ways of
Providence, but it do appear that we have staid here too long. I ought
to have been taken when he left."

"You mean Barker, Sister?"

"Oh, no, I mean 'he'. I can remember how his hair waved, though I wasn't
but sixteen at the time; and the day when he hitched my hoss for me, all
the girls looked down-trod. It was more than fifty year ago."

"Of course I am a much younger woman," replied Sister Starbuck, "and I
can't look back an' see no man but J--J--Jasper."

They returned to their silent weeping, and after a time a cup of coffee
was suggested. Sister Barker objected. Her mind was so full of the past
that she had no heart to swallow the devices of the present, but upon
persuasion she yielded; and when the coffee was drunk, pipes were
lighted and comfortably back they sat and talked about the neighbors.
After a while an old carryall wobbled up to the gate and out got Mrs.
Spencer. By the time she reached the door-step fresh tears were falling.

"Come right in," said Margaret. "I am so glad to see you at this time."

"And what do you want with me--to set down an' help you cry? Wall, I
ain't of the cryin' sort. I put my cryin' aside when I got outen the
cradle." She sat down and with a palm-leaf fanned herself. "It's a plum
outrage," she said. "An' what's the matter with you, Miz Barker? Ain't
lost a cow, have you? Why, yo' face looks like a old rock atter a heavy
dew."

Mrs. Barker--they were not sisters now--wiped away her yellowish tears.
"I have the right to cry if I feel like it," she replied. "I was a
thinkin' of he."

"A thinkin' of the cat's foot," the old "heroic" snapped. "You mean that
journeyman hatter that you've talked about so much? He was drunk half
the time an' wan't worth the attention it would take to shove him into
the river. Conscience alive, you have shed enough tears over him to
drown him. Now quit it an' let's talk business. They've got our folks in
jail an' they a