long, long time."

"It is impossible to be sure of anything of the sort," retorted Mrs. Winslow, as though such obdurate cheerfulness annoyed her. "Human life is most uncertain. I wish you would go out of black for Sylvester Mary,—I mean solid black—this fall. White with it would be pretty, and by another year you could wear sober greys."

"We are always trying to avoid anything like sober Greys, Azraella," said Mrs. Grey with her sunny smile, while in her heart she knew that all her life she should wear the widow's garb for a loss irreparable to her, though borne cheerfully, and courageously.

"You are too young—only a little past forty—to wear black long," said Aunt Azraella, as if grief and mourning were a matter of astronomical calculation, like eclipses of the sun. "What would you do if you had my wealth, Wythie? You know you are not nearly as well off as I am."

"Quite as well off as I want to be," said Wythie contentedly. "Four thousand a year is an ideal sum for four people. Enough to make life secure, too little to give us much bother, and not enough to allow us to be idle. Really, it is just the right sum. I never have thought what I should do if I were as rich as you are, Aunt Azraella."

"Your mind seems to be travelling rapidly from one thing to another, this morning, Azraella," smiled Mrs. Grey. "Tobias' leg, mourning, money—though these latter subjects are closely connected only too often."

"And the only thing I came for was Tobias' leg," added Mrs. Winslow. "I'm getting too warm here; I'll be overheated and catch more cold. You tell Rob when she comes that my cat's limping again and won't eat, and if she wants to see him, she can. If she don't we'll chloroform him—and I guess that's best."

Mrs. Winslow arose as she spoke, but Wythie pushed her gently back into her chair and knelt to put on her aunt's overshoes. "Rob will be up, Aunt," she said. "She has a surgeon's tastes and talents."

"I wonder if that's why she and that second Rutherford boy are specially good friends?" suggested Aunt Azraella, stooping her shoulders to receive her cape. "He's going to be a doctor, isn't he?"

"Yes, Bruce is studying hard for that end; he will make a good doctor. Dr. Fairbairn says he has a marked vocation for his profession," said Mrs. Grey.

"He's a good boy," said Aunt Azraella unexpectedly, "though they are all three fine specimens. Well, send Rob, if she wants to come. Good-bye."

"No fear of her not wanting to try to relieve Tobias and give him a chance to live his exemplary life longer," said Wythie as she let her aunt out of the side door by which she had entered.

"Is this your morning at home, Mardy?" called Prue from up-stairs where she was setting the chambers straight. "Rob is coming up the hill with Cousin Peace, and Mrs. Flinders is coming in the opposite direction with Polly."

"And the boys to-night!" sighed Wythie. "I don't believe I shall get done half I meant to do."

"That sigh must have been for Mrs. Flinders; it couldn't have been for Charlotte," said her mother.

"I've brought a trophy," announced Rob, coming into the room like a western breeze, eyes dancing and cheeks reddened by the October wind.

"Dear Charlotte, you are always the most welcome!" exclaimed Mrs. Grey, her voice tenderly caressing, while Wythie wound her arm around their beloved "Cousin Peace," as her other hand unfastened her coat.

"Robin insisted that I should not be in the way, and I did want so much to come that I am afraid it didn't take strong arguments to convince me that she was right," said the blind woman. "It is always good and better to come here."

"Why there's little Polly Flinders and her mother!" exclaimed Rob. "Now I wonder what has happened!"

She went to admit these last arrivals as she spoke, and Mrs. Flinders came gauntly into the room, followed by Polly, clinging silently to her adored Rob's hand, as if she were frightened.

Mrs. Flinders seated herself on the edge of a chair and began nervously fingering the fold of the shawl in which she defied passing fashions of coats and capes. "Did you hear?" she asked. And the Greys knew that something serious had brought her to them.

"You didn't hear?" Mrs. Flinders substituted, as the Greys all shook their heads. "It happened day before yesterday. He's had a stroke and the doctor says he won't never be able to use his hands again. He can talk's good's ever, and it ain't affected his mind, but he's done with life till he dies."

"How dreadful!" murmured Mrs. Grey, struck by the dramatic form of this closing statement, and greatly shocked at the hard fate which had overtaken the farmer who for a long time had taken care of the Grey place, sharing its product with the owners.

"What—You haven't made any plans yet, I suppose, Mrs. Flinders?"

"Yes, I have. I telegraphed his brother, and he telegraphed back I could bring him on to his house in Boston and see if anything could do any good, though I don't believe there's a doctor anywheres better than Dr. Fairbairn," said the woman, disdaining to wipe away the tears that had gathered in her eyes, and thus seeming to deny their presence. "You ain't heard the worst. Here I am, been slaving and scrimping all my days—you know just how near he's always been—and getting more tired every year, and losing all my children except Maimie there, who ain't any too rugged, and the only thing that kep' me up was thinking that we was saving and putting by each year, so's if anything should happen we'd have a tidy sum to pull through on. And as soon's he was struck, and Dr. Fairbairn told him the truth about himself, according to the doctor's principles of fair dealing with his patients, and had left, he called me to him, and he up and told me what I hadn't so much as an idea of. He's been drawing that money out of the bank and buying stocks through some kind of a firm that advertised in the papers just to catch country folks, and they kep' writing he was losing, with just enough gain once in a while to egg him on, till he used up every penny we had saved, and there ain't one red cent to show for all these years! It was worrying about it that brought on the stroke, I guess—land knows it's enough to give any one one! He never dared tell me, but when he was took he didn't dare not to. Now, I ask you, Mis' Grey, if that ain't just like a near man, to save and scrape and go without act'al necessaries of life, and then be caught by a glittering humbug that promises things even Maimie had ought to know it wouldn't fulfil?"

"I am afraid it is," assented Mrs. Grey, as the flood of Mrs. Flinders' passionate eloquence paused for her reply. "It's not an unusual story, but it is none the less a tragic one. I can't tell you how sorry I am for you—and for Mr. Flinders, too; poor, deluded, stricken man!"

Mrs. Flinders swallowed what barely escaped being a great sob, and Miss Charlotte asked: "But what does it all stand for, what degree of misfortune, I mean? What are you going to do, Mrs. Flinders?"

"How am I going to live, do you mean?" asked the poor woman, turning to the compassionate face that could not see her own. "The land knows; I don't. There's no use trying to plan ahead. That's what I've been doing, and now look at what's come of it! I know I'm going to his brother's in Boston with him, and that's as far's I know."

"But Polly?" suggested Rob, clasping closer the little girl on her knee.

"Yes, that's what I was coming to, Roberta," said Mrs. Flinders, turning to Rob with an embarrassment that was at the same time relief. "I've been studying all the way here how I'd say it to you. First I thought I'd tell you the