“I don’t know what to decide, really,” Mrs. Ried said thoughtfully, standing, with an irresolute air, beside the pantry door.  “Sadie, hadn’t I better make these pies?”

“Is that the momentous question which you can’t decide, mother?”

Mrs. Ried laughed.  “Not quite; it is about the new boarder.  We have room enough for another certainly, and seven dollars a week is quite an item just now.  If Ester were at home, I shouldn’t hesitate.”

“Mother, if I weren’t the meekest and most enduring of mortals, I should be hopelessly vexed by this time at the constancy with which your thoughts turn to Ester; it is positively insulting, as if I were not doing remarkably.  Do you put anything else in apple-pies?  I never mean to have one, by the way, in my house.  I think they’re horrid; crust—­apples—­nutmeg—­little lumps of butter all over it.  Is there anything else, mother, before I put the top on?”

“Sometimes I sweeten mine a little,” Mrs. Ried answered demurely.

“Oh, sure enough; it was that new boarder that took all thoughts of sweetness out of me.  How much sugar, mother?  Do let him come.  We are such a stupid family now, it is time we had a new element in it; besides, you know I broke the largest platter yesterday, and his seven dollars will help buy another.  I wish he was anything but a doctor, though; one ingredient of that kind is enough in a family, especially of the stamp which we have at present.”

“Sadie,” said Mrs. Ried gravely and reprovingly; “I never knew a young man for whom I have a greater respect than I have for Dr. Van Anden.”

“Yes, ma’am,” answered Sadie, with equal gravity; “I have an immense respect for him I assure you, and so I have for the President, and I feel about as intimate with the one as the other.  I hope Dr. Douglass will be delightfully wild and wicked.  How will Dr. Van Anden enjoy the idea of a rival?”

“I spoke of it to him yesterday.  I told him we would’t give the matter another thought if it would be in any way unpleasant to him.  I thought we owed him that consideration in return for all his kindness to us; but he assured me that it could make not the slightest difference to him.”

“Do let him come, then.  I believe I need another bed to make; I’m growing thin for want of exercise, and, by the way, that suggests an item in his favor; being a doctor, he will be out all night occasionally, perhaps, and the bed won’t need making so often.  Mother, I do believe I didn’t put a speck of soda in that cake I made this morning.  What will that do to it? or, more properly speaking, what will it not do, inasmuch as it is not there to do?  As for Ester, I shall consider it a personal insult if you refer to her again, when I am so magnificently filling her place.”

And this much enduring mother laughed and groaned at nearly the same time.  Poor Ester never forgot the soda, nor indeed anything else, in her life; but then Sadie was so overflowing with sparkle and good humor.