ung sir."

When Larry reached Mrs. Sniff's, Jan-an was still riotously sweeping
the memories of the funeral away. She turned and looked at Larry.
Then, leaning on her broom, she continued to stare.

"Well, what in all possessed got yer down here?" asked the girl, her
face stiffening.

"Where's Mrs. Sniff?" Larry asked. He always resented Jan-an, on
general principles. She got in his way too often. When she was out of
sight he never thought of her, but her vacant stare and monotonous
drawl were offensive to him.

He had once suggested that she be confined somewhere. "You never can
tell about her kind," he had said; he had a superstitious fear of
her.

"What, shut the poor child from her freedom?" Aunt Polly had asked
him, "just because we cannot tell? Lordy! Larry Rivers, there wouldn't
be many people running around loose if we applied that rule to them."

There were some turns that conversation took that sent Larry into
sudden silences--this had been one. He had never referred to Jan-an's
treatment after that, but he always resented her.

Jan-an continued to stare at him.

"There ain't no Mrs. Sniff" she said finally. "What's ailin' folks
around here?"

"Well, where's Miss Peneluna?" Larry ventured, thinking back to the
old title of his boyhood days.

"Setting!" Jan-an returned to her sweeping and Larry stepped aside.

"I want to see her," he said angrily. "Get out of the way."

"She ain't no great sight, and I'm cleaning up!" Jan-an scowled and
her energy suggested that Larry might soon be included among the
things she was getting rid of.

"See here"--Larry's eyes darkened--"if you don't stand aside----"

But at this juncture Peneluna loomed in the doorway. She regarded
Larry with a tightening of the mouth muscles. Inwardly she thought of
him as a bad son of a good father, but intuitions were not proofs and
because Doctor Rivers had been good, and Mary-Clare was always to be
considered, the old woman kept her feelings to herself.

She was still in her rusty black, the rakish bonnet set awry on her
head.

"Come in!" she said quietly. "And you, Jan-an, you trundle over to my
old place and clean up."

Larry went inside and sat down in the chair nearest the door. The
neatness and order of the room struck even his indifferent eyes, so
unexpected was it on the Point.

"Well?" Peneluna looked at her visitor coolly. Larry did not speak at
once--he was going to get the house next door; he must have it an