elp--your cousin, Mrs. Collamer, and
Dorothea Roscoe and Roscoe Collamer and Mrs. Collamer Roscoe and your
cousin Paterson."

"Paterson, indeed!" Miss Roscoe's voice showed its first touch of
warmth as she seized the conversation. "Miss Jenkins," she said,
"you're a young woman, and a well-meaning one, and my feelings toward
you are kindly. But a mistake has been made. There ain't going to be
any fair!

"I know all about your plans, knew 'em from the minute you started
talking 'em over with the minister and cousin Parthenia, down at the
meeting house. After she left you, she came right over and told me."

"But she seemed very enthusiastic," began Annie, feebly.

"Yes, _seemed_," interrupted the older woman, "but she didn't dare!
Cousin Parthenia never set herself up against me yet, and she's
getting a little too well on in years to begin. Next day there was
quite a meeting of our folks here. My back gate kept a-clicking till
sundown. All but Paterson came, Miss Jenkins, and he's less than half
a Roscoe, and no Collamer at all. His mother was one of them
white-livered Lulls, from Pomfret. He's bound, anyway, to stand by
you, because he's getting wages from your uncle. Well, I settled it
all then and there, this fair business, I mean, but I told them to
wait, for I some expected to see you!"

Annie's eyes opened wide. "I meant to come before; I'm afraid I am a
little late." Her attitude was deprecatory; it might have moved a
stone, but it produced no impression on her listener.

"I'm afraid you are," Miss Pamela assented, gloomily. "I'm an old
woman, and there ain't much left to me, but I don't mean to let the
authority that I've always had in my family be taken away by any
outsider. If you'd come to me _first_, Miss Jenkins, things might have
been arranged different; but that's over now, and I was always one to
let bygones be bygones."

Annie had moved to the hall, while her hostess fumbled at the door. It
opened and let in a whiff of cool air and sounds of crickets on the
grass.

"Autumn is here," remarked Miss Roscoe, impersonally, addressing the
world at large. Then she called to the girl between the box rows. Was
there a touch of amusement in the mortuary voice?

"I presume you'll hear from the folks to-morrow that they've changed
their minds. Do drop in again some time. I've enjoyed your visit, and
don't forget to tell Miss Bangs to be careful of her headache!"

* * * * *