or
warning to your deaf ears.

Mrs. Jackson herself believed it implicitly and went each week to
consult one or another of the more advanced mediums. The last one had
seen the spirit of her Aunt Mary, a deceased person so remote in time
that she had been clean forgotten. But it was a valuable pointer. When
you come to think about it, at least seven parties out of ten, if they
were any way along in years, had a dead Aunt Mary. And it was best to go
to the good ones. Mrs. Jackson admitted that. You paid more, but you got
more.

Uncle Bunker became of this opinion very soon. What Mrs. Jackson
disclosed to him about May wheat had seemed to be hardly worth the
dollar she asked. He began going to the good ones, and Bean gathered
that even their superior gifts left something to be desired. The
brilliant uncle began to accustom his home circle to frowns. Bean and
the older Clara (she was beginning to complain about not sleeping and a
pain in her side) were sensible of this change, but the younger Clara
only pouted when she noticed it at all, prettily accusing her splendid
consort of not caring for her as he had once professed to. She spent
more time over her hair and shopped extensively for feminine trappings.

Then one day his uncle came home, a slinking wreck of beauty, and told
Aunt Clara that all was lost save honour. Bean heard the interesting
announcement, and gathered, after a question from his aunt, that his own
patrimony had been a part of that all which was lost save honour. He
heard his uncle add tearfully that one shot would end it now.

He was frightened by this, but his Aunt Clara seemed not to be. He heard
her say, "There, there! Did a nassy ol' martet do adainst 'ums!" And
later she was seen to take him up tea and toast and chicken.

* * * * *

The years seemed to march more swiftly then--school and growing and
little changes in the house. Boo'ful never fired the shot that would
have ended all. The older Clara inconsequently died and the frivolous
Clara took her place in the kitchen. She had not corrected her light
manner, but slowly she changed with the years until she was almost as
faded as the old Clara had been. More ambitious, however, and working to
better purpose. They went to a new and finer house that would hold more
boarders; and the sign, which was lettered in gold, said, "Boarders
Taken," a far more dignified sign than the old with its frank appeal of
"Boarders W