in numerous phrases of a startling but thoroughly intelligible order.  Of such a sort was her usual Saturday morning greeting to Mrs. Lathrop, “I ’m sorry to cut you off so quick, but this ’s father’s day to be beat up and got into new pillow-slips,” or her regular early-June remark, “Well, I thank Heaven ’t father ’s had his hair picked over ‘n’ ’t he’s got his new tick for this year!”

Mrs. Lathrop was always interested, always sympathetic, and rarely ever startled; yet one July evening when Susan said suddenly, “I ’ve finished my dress for father’s funeral,” she did betray a slight shock.

“You ought to see it,” the younger woman continued, not noticing the other’s start,—­“it’s jus’ ’s nice.  I put it away in camphor balls, ‘n’ Lord knows I don’t look forward to the gettin’ it out to wear, f’r the whole carriage load ’ll sneeze their heads off whenever I move in that dress.”

“Did you put newspaper—­” Mrs. Lathrop began, mastering her earlier emotions.

“In the sleeves?  Yes, I did, ‘n’ I bought a pair o’ black gloves ‘n’ two handkerchiefs ‘n’ slipped ’em into the pockets.  Everythin’ is all fixed, ‘n’ there ‘ll be nothin’ to do when father dies but to shake it out ‘n’ lay it on the bed in his room.  I say ‘in his room,’ ‘cause o’ course that day he ‘ll be havin’ the guest-room.  I was thinkin’ of it all this afternoon when I sat there by him hemmin’ the braid on the skirt, ‘n’ I could n’t but think ’t if I sit ‘n’ wait very much longer I sh’ll suddenly find myself pretty far advanced in years afore I know it.  This world’s made f’r the young ’s well’s the old, ‘n’ you c’n believe me or not jus’ ’s you please, Mrs. Lathrop, but I ’ve always meant to get married ’s soon ’s father was off my hands.  I was countin’ up to-day, though, ‘n’ if he lives to be a hunderd, I ’ll be nigh onto seventy ‘n’ no man ain’t goin’ to marry me at seventy.  Not ’nless he was eighty, ‘n’ Lord knows I ain’t intendin’ to bury father jus’ to begin on some one else, ‘n’ that’s all it ’d be.”

Mrs. Lathrop chewed her clover.

“I set there thinkin’ f’r a good hour, ‘n’ when I was puttin’ away the dress, I kep’ on thinkin’, ‘n’ the end was ’t now that dress ’s done I ain’t got nothin’ in especial to sew on ‘n’ so I may jus’ ’s well begin on my weddin’ things.  There’s no time like the present, ‘n’ ’f I married this summer he ’d have to pay f’r half of next winter’s coal.  ‘N’ so my mind’s made up, ‘n’ you c’n talk yourself blind, ’f you feel so inclined, Mrs. Lathrop, but you can’t change hide or hair o’ my way o’ thinkin’.  I ’ve made up my mind to get married, ‘n’ I ’m goin’ to set right about it.  Where there’s a will there ’s a way, ‘n’ I ain’t goin’ to leave a stone unturned.  I went down town with the kerosene-can jus’ afore tea, ‘n’ I bought me a new false front, ‘n’ I met Mrs. Brown’s son, ‘n’ I told him ’t I wanted him to come up to-morrow ‘n’ take a look at father.”

“Was you thinkin’ o’ marryin’ Mrs. Br——­” Mrs. Lathrop gasped, taking her clover from her lips.