“Would you now?” asked Miss Beal, and her fingers ran in and out, in and out, faster than ever, “would you, now?  Well, then . . . there’s a fair at Milford this blessed afternoon.”

“Would you go along?” asked Mrs. Grumble.

“Glory,” said Miss Beal.

“I was going anyhow,” said Mrs. Grumble.

Then Miss Beal began to giggle.  “Well, I declare,” she remarked, “I feel that young.”

“Go away,” said Mrs. Grumble; “to hear you talk . . .”  She was in the best of humor.

“All the young folks will be there,” said Miss Beal.  “I heard as how Alec Stove was going with Susie Ploughman.  And there’s Thomas Frye . . . and Anna Barly . . .”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Grumble.

Miss Beal held up her thread against the light.  “There’s a queer thing,” she admitted.  “I can’t make head nor tail of it.  Do you think there’s an understanding between them, Mrs. Grumble?”

“If there is,” said Mrs. Grumble, “then Thomas has more sense than I gave him credit for.  Because how any one could have an understanding with that wild thing, is more than I can see.”

“How she carries on,” agreed Miss Beal, “first with Noel, when he was alive, and now with him.”

“Ah,” remarked Mrs. Grumble, “those are the new ideas.  She has her head full of them.  Only the other day, down to the store, I heard her say to Mr. Frye:  ’It’s the old who are always getting the young into trouble.’”

“Just think of that,” said Miss Beal.

“To my way of thinking,” continued Mrs. Grumble, “the shoe is on the other foot.  What with the young folks growing up so wild, we must all be as busy as thieves to keep what belongs to us.”

“And what belongs to us, Mrs. Grumble?” asked the dressmaker, lifting from her lap a dress designed for Mrs. Sneath, the butcher’s wife.

“No more than what we can get,” replied Mrs. Grumble, with a shake of her head.  “And that’s little enough.”

“Then,” said Miss Beal, “what do you think Anna Barly meant by saying ’twas the old had got her into trouble?”

“Why, bless your soul,” said Mrs. Grumble.

Miss Beal, from the front of her chair, regarded her friend with round and serious eyes.  “I don’t rightly know, Mrs. Grumble,” she said, “but I came on her yesterday, and I declare if she hadn’t been crying.  Last night I dreamed old Mrs. Tomkins died.  And you know, Mrs. Grumble, dream of the dead . . .”

“Go away,” said Mrs. Grumble.

“Mind,” quoth Miss Beal, “I don’t mean to say there’s anything as shouldn’t be.  Still, nothing would surprise me.”

“There’s no use talking,” cried Mrs. Grumble, “because I don’t believe a word of it.”  But she felt it her duty to add:  “For all I never saw Anna look so poorly.”

“A touch of influenza,” answered Miss Beal, “so Sara Barly says.  Lord save us:  a big healthy girl like Anna.”