r, the sitting-room, and the dining-room, which had
been decorated during the warm afternoon with borrowed palms and with
roses from the neighbor's vines, were being ventilated. Windows were
rising, and doors opening. The velvety air of May was fluttering
everywhere. And there was so much life in it, that when Mrs.
Pennington saw the two boys pass out of the alley gate, she saw the
Perkins boy grab her son's hat and run away whooping, while Piggy
followed, throwing clods at his companion's legs and feet. She
thought, as she turned to her turkey-slicing, that the Perkins child
was not taking his father's death "very hard." But she did not know
that the boyish whoop was the only thing that saved him from sobbing,
as he left the home where he saw such a contrast to his own. How could
a woman carrying the responsibilities of the social honor of the
Methodist church in Willow Creek have time to use her second sight?

[Illustration: _As she turned to her turkey-slicing_.]

The guests at the Pennington house that evening divided the honors
equally between the new preacher, for whom the party was made, and
Miss Morgan, whose last niece had married and left her but two days
before. Most of the guests had met the new preacher; but none of
them--save one or two of her intimate friends--could know how the
lonely little old woman was faring in the cottage whence one by one
her adopted birds had flown. They called her "little Miss Morgan" in
the town, and the story of her life of devotion to her brothers' and
sisters' children was familiar to every one about her. For ten years
she had lived in Willow Creek caring for her brothers' orphans.
She came to the community from the East, and found what she
brought--culture, friends, and kindness at every turn. The children
whom she had cared for had grown up, filed through the town's real
estate college, and then mating had left the little spinster alone.

[Illustration: _The new preacher, for whom the party was made_.]

At the Penningtons' that evening she was cheerful enough--so cheerful,
indeed, in her little bird-like way, that many of those who talked
with her fancied that the resourceful little body was beyond the reach
of petty grief. The modest, almost girlish smile beamed through the
wrinkles of fifty autumns as brightly that evening at the Penningtons'
as the town had ever seen it. From her place in a high-backed chair in
the corner, Miss Morgan, in her shy, self-deprecatory way