were long; and so they got a young man for assistant; and they made him a pastor americus, they called it—­some sort of Latin.  Folks did say the young feller was stuck up and snubbed the old man; anyhow, he never preached after young Lisbon come; and only made the first prayers.  But when the old folks would ask him to preach some of the old sermons they had liked, he only would say, ‘No, friends, I know more about my sermons, now.’  He didn’t live very long, and I always kinder fancied being a americus killed him.  And some days I git to feeling like I was a kinder americus myself.”

“That ain’t fair to your children,” said Tilly; “you ought to let them know how you feel.  Then they’d act different.”

“Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know.  You see, miss, they’re so sure they know better’n me.  Say, Mrs. Louder, be you going to visit relatives in Baxter?”

“No, ma’am, I’m going to take care of a sick lady,” said Jane, “it’s kinder queer.  Her name’s Ferguson, her ——­”

“For the land’s sake!” screamed Mrs. Higbee, “why, that’s my ’Liza!” She was in a flutter of surprise and delight, and so absorbed was Tilly in getting her and her unwieldy luggage into the car, that Jane’s daughter forgot to kiss her mother good-by.

“Put your arm in quick,” she yelled, as Jane essayed to kiss her hand through the window; “don’t ever put your arm or your head out of a train!”—­the train moved away—­“I do hope she’ll remember what I told her, and not lend anybody money, or come home lugging somebody else’s baby!”

With such reflections, and an ugly sensation of loneliness creeping over her, Tilly went to assure Miss Minnie Higbee of her mother’s safety.  She described her reception to Harry Lossing and Alma, later.  “She really seemed kinder mad at me,” says Tilly, “seemed to think I was interfering somehow.  And she hadn’t any business to feel that way, for she didn’t know how I’d fooled her brother with that bird-cage.  I guess the poor old lady daren’t call her soul her own.  I’d hate to have my mother that way—­so ’fraid of me.  My mother shall go where she pleases, and stay where she pleases, and do as she pleases.”

“That makes me think,” says Alma, “I heard you were going to move.”

“Yes, we are.  Mother is working too hard.  She knows everybody in the building, and they call on her all the time; and I think the easiest way out is just to move.”

Alma and Mr. Lossing exchanged glances.  There is an Arabian legend of an angel whose trade it is to decipher the language of faces.  This angel must have perceived that Alma’s eyes said, with the courage of a second in a duel, “Go on, now is the time!” and that Harry’s answered, with masculine pusillanimity, “I don’t like to!”