“It’s about all anybody can do to do their housework, if they do it thorough,” returned Mrs. Field.  “I s’pose you’ve been takin’ up carpets?”

“Took up every carpet in the house.  I do every year.  Some folks don’t, but I can’t stand it.  I’m afraid of moths, too.  I s’pose you’ve got your cleanin’ all done?”

“Yes, I’ve got it about done.”

“Well, I shouldn’t think you could do so much, Mis’ Field, with your hands.”

Mrs. Field’s hands lay in her lap, yellow and heavily corrugated, the finger-joints in great knots, which looked as if they had been tied in the bone.  Mrs. Babcock eyed them pitilessly.

“How are they now?” she inquired.  “Seems to me they look worse than they used to.”

Mrs. Field regarded her hands with a staid, melancholy air.  “Well, I dun’no’.”

“Seems to me they look worse.  How’s Lois, Mis’ Field?”

“She’s pretty well, I guess.  I dun’no’ why she ain’t.”

“Somebody was sayin’ the other day that she looked dreadfully.”

Mrs. Field had heretofore held herself with a certain slow dignity.  Now her manner suddenly changed, and she spoke fast.  “I dun’no’ what folks mean talkin’ so,” said she.  “Lois ain’t been lookin’ very well, as I know of, lately; but it’s the spring of the year, an’ she’s always apt to feel it.”

“Mebbe that is it,” replied the other, with a doubtful inflection.  “Let’s see, you called it consumption that ailed your sister, didn’t you, Mis’ Field?”

“I s’pose it was.”

Mrs. Babcock stared with cool reflection at the other woman’s long, pale face, with its high cheek-bones and deep-set eyes and wide, drooping mouth.  She was deliberating whether or not to ask for some information that she wanted.  “Speakin’ of your sister,” said she finally, with a casual air, “her husband’s father is livin’, ain’t he?”

“He was the last I knew.”

“I s’pose he’s worth considerable property?”

“Yes, I s’pose he is.”

“Well, I want to know.  Somebody was speakin’ about it the other day, an’ they said they thought he did, an’ I told ’em I didn’t believe it.  He never helped your sister’s husband any, did he?”

Mrs. Field did not reply for a moment.  Mrs. Babcock was leaning forward and smiling ingratiatingly, with keen eyes upon her face.

“I dun’no’ as he did.  But I guess Edward never expected he would much,” said she.

“Well, I told ’em I didn’t believe he did.  I declare! it seemed pretty tough, didn’t it?”

“I dun’no’.  I thought of it some along there when Edward was sick.”

“I declare, I should have thought you’d wrote to him about it.”

Mrs. Field said nothing.

“Didn’t you ever?” Mrs. Babcock asked.

“Well, yes; I wrote once when he was first taken sick.”

“An’ he didn’t take any notice of it?”

Mrs. Field shook her head.