talie's advent, for a monster climbing
rose of hardy disposition had more than half covered the veranda before
she came.

The house itself was of clapboards painted white, and stood four square;
its small-paned windows, flanked with green shutters, blinking toward
the west. It had a very prim air, said to have been absorbed from Aunt
Jed, and seemed to be eternally trying to draw back its skirts from
contact with the interloping veranda and the rose-tree, which, toward
the end of the flowering season, certainly gave it a mussed appearance.
At such times, if the great front door was left open on a warm day, the
house took on a look of open-mouthed horror, which immediately relapsed
to primness once the door was closed.

Natalie was the discoverer of this evidence of personality. Sitting
under the two giant elms that were the sole ornament of the soft old
lawn, she suddenly caught the look on the face of the house, and called
out:

"Mother, come here! Come quickly!" as though the look couldn't possibly
last through Mrs. Leighton's leisurely approach.

"What is it, dear?" asked Mrs. Leighton.

"Why, the house!" said Natalie. "Look at it. It's horrified at
something. I think it must be the mess the roses have made. Can't you
see what it's saying? It's saying, 'Well, I never!'"

Mrs. Leighton laughed.

"It does look sort of funny," she said.

Just then old mammy put her gray head out of the door to hear what the
talk was about. She wore glasses, as becoming to her age, but peered
over them when she wanted to see anything.

"What youans larffin' abeout?" she demanded.

"We're laughing at the house," cried Natalie. "It's got its mouth open
and the funniest look on its face. Come and see."

"Mo' nonsense," grunted mammy and slammed the door.

Then it was that the house seemed to withdraw suddenly into the primness
of virginal white paint.

"That's what it wanted," cried Natalie, excitedly--"just to get its
mouth shut. O Mother, isn't it an old _dear_?"

Stub Hollow had looked upon the new arrivals at Aunt Jed's as summer
people until they began to frequent Stub Hollow's first and only
Presbyterian church. Natalie, who like all people of charm, was many
years younger inside than she was out, immediately perceived that the
introduction of mammy in her best Sunday turban into that congregation
would do a great deal toward destroying its comatose atmosphere. Like
many another New England village church, Stub Hollo