“But Penelope has no children to mind, Mrs. Riggs.”

“Land alive!  She hez me, an’ I oughter be more ter her than a duzzen childern,—­but she ain’t got no proper feelin’s, Penel ain’t.  When I’m a’ lyin’ in my coffin she’ll give her eyes ter hev the chance ter rub my rheumatiz, an’ run for hot bottles an’ flannels an’ ginger tea.  It’s an ongrateful world but I allcrs sez there ain’t no use complainin’; it’s what we’ve got ter expec’,—­triberlation an’ anguish an’ mournin’ an’ woe.  It’s good enuff fer us too.  Sech wurms ez we be!”

“Well, Evadne, how do you do, child?  I’m dretful glad to see you,” and Penelope, breezy and keen as a March wind, came bustling into the room.  “Why, yes, I’m well, child, if it wasn’t for bein’ so tumbled about in my mind.”

“What has tumbled you, Penelope?” asked Evadne with a merry laugh.

“The Scribes and Pharisees,” was the terse rejoinder.  “I’ve just cum from a Committee meeting of the Missionary Society an’ I’m free to confess my feelin’s is roused tremendous.  Seems to me nowadays the church is built at a different angle from the Sermon on the Mount an’ things is measured by the world’s yardsticks till there ain’t much sense in callin’ it a church at all.  Ef you’d seen the way Squire Higgins’ girls sot down on poor little Matildy Jones this afternoon, just because her father sells fish!  Their father sells it too, but he’s got forehanded an’ can do it by the gross, an’ so they toss their heads an’ set a whole garden full o’ flowers a’ shakin’ upan’ down.  They’re allers more peacocky in their minds after they git their spring bunnets.  The Lord said we was to consider the lilies, but I guess he meant us to leave ’em in the fields, for I notice the more folks carries on the tops of their heads the less their apt to be like ’em underneath.”

“But what did they say to her?” asked Evadne.

“You’re young, child, or you’d know there’s more ways of insultin’ than with the tongue, an’ poor little Matildy is jest the one to be hurt that way.  Some folks is like clams, the minute you touch ’em, they shut themselves up in their shells an’ then they don’t feel what you do to ’em any more’n the Rocky mountains, but Matildy isn’t made that way.  She just sot there with the flushes comin’ in her cheeks an’ the tears shinin’ in her pretty eyes till my heart ached.  I leaned over to her an’ whispered, ‘Don’t fret, Matildy, they ain’t wuth mindin’.  She gave me a little wintry smile but the tears kep a’ comin’ an’ by an’ bye she got up and went out, an’ ef she don’t imitate the Prophet Jeremi an’ water her piller with her tears this night, then I’ve changed my name sence mornin’.

“I was so uplifted in my mind with righteous indignation that I felt called upon to let it loose, so I begun in a musin’ tone, as ef I was havin’ a solil.”

“‘A solil?’” said Evadne in a mystified tone.

“Why, yes; talkin’ to myself, child.  I did think, ef there was any place folks was free an’ eqal ‘twould be in the Lord’s service,’ sez I.  ’The Bible teaches it’s a pretty dangerous bizness to offend one uv these little ones.  I’m not much of a hand at quotations, but there’s an unpleasant connection between it an’ a millstun,’ sez I.