Miriam muttered some sort of answer, but Barbara smiled.  “It is very interesting,” she said, kindly.  “I’ve never read anything like it.”

[Sidenote:  Going the Rounds]

“It’s a lot better’n the books you and Roger waste your time over,” returned the guest, much gratified; “but I can’t lend you the papers, cause there’s five waitin’ after the postmaster’s wife, and goodness knows how many of them has promised others.  I don’t mind runnin’ over once in a while, though, and tellin’ you about ’em while I sew.

“It keeps ’em fresh in my memory,” she added, happily, “and Roger is so busy with his law books he don’t have time to listen to ’em except at supper.  He reads law every evening now, and he didn’t used to.  Guess he ain’t wasting so much time as he was.  Been down to the hotel yet?” she asked, inclining her head toward Miriam.

“Once,” answered Miriam, reluctantly.

[Sidenote:  Gossip]

“There ain’t many come yet,” the postmaster’s wife tells me.  “There’s a young lady at the hotel named Miss Eloise Wynne, and every day but Saturday she gets a letter from the city, addressed in a man’s writin’.  And every afternoon, when the boy brings the hotel mail down to go out on the night train, there’s a big white square envelope in a woman’s writin’ addressed to Doctor Allan Conrad, some place in the city.  The envelope smells sweet, but the writin’ is dreadful big and sploshy-lookin’.  Know anything about her?” Miss Mattie gazed sharply at Miriam over her spectacles.

“No,” returned Miriam, decisively.

“Thought maybe you would.  Anyhow, you don’t need to be so sharp about it, cause there’s no harm in askin’ a civil question.  My mother always taught me that a civil question called for a civil answer.  I should think, from the letters and all, that he was her steady company, shouldn’t you?”

“It’s possible,” assented Barbara, seeing that Miriam did not intend to reply.

“There’s some talk at the sewin’ circle of gettin’ you one of them hand sewin’ machines,” continued Miss Mattie, “so’s you could sew more and better.”

Barbara flushed painfully.  “Thank you,” she answered, “but I couldn’t use it.  I much prefer to do all my work by hand.”

“All right,” assented Miss Mattie, good-humouredly.  “It ain’t our idea to force a sewin’ machine onto anybody that don’t want it.  We can use some of the money in gettin’ a door-mat for the front door of the church.  And, if I was you, I wouldn’t let my pa run around so much by himself.  If he wants to borrow a dog to go with him, Roger would be willin’ to lend him Judge Bascom’s Fido.  If the Judge wasn’t willin’, Roger would try to persuade him.  Lendin’ Fido would make law easier for Roger and be a great help to your pa.

“I must go, now, and get supper.  Good-bye.  I’ve enjoyed my visit ever so much.  Come over sometime, Miriam—­you ain’t very sociable.  Good-bye.”