“This afternoon, as you know, I’d promised the boys that I’d take ’em over to see the menagerie, and nothin’ wouldn’t do none of us any good but we must see the circus too; an’ when we’d just got posted on one o’ the best high seats, mother she nudged me, and I looked right down front two, three rows, an’ if there wa’n’t Mis’ Price, spectacles an’ all, with her head right up in the air, havin’ the best time you ever see.  I laughed right out.  She hadn’t taken no time to see ’Liza Jane; she wa’n’t ‘suagin’ no grief for nobody till she’d seen the circus.  ‘There,’ says I, ‘I do like to have anybody keep their young feelin’s!’”

“Mis’ Price come over to see our folks before breakfast,” said John York.  “Wife said she was inquirin’ about the circus, but she wanted to know first if they couldn’t oblige her with a few trinkets o’ mournin’, seein’ as how she’d got to pay a mournin’ visit.  Wife thought’t was a bosom-pin, or somethin’ like that, but turned out she wanted the skirt of a dress; ’most anything would do, she said.”

“I thought she looked extra well startin’ off,” said Isaac, with an indulgent smile.  “The Lord provides very handsome for such, I do declare!  She ain’t had no visible means o’ support these ten or fifteen years back, but she don’t freeze up in winter no more than we do.”

“Nor dry up in summer,” interrupted his friend; “I never did see such an able hand to talk.”

“She’s good company, and she’s obliging an’ useful when the women folks have their extra work progressin’,” continued Isaac Brown kindly.  “’Tain’t much for a well-off neighborhood like this to support that old chirpin’ cricket.  My mother used to say she kind of helped the work along by ‘livenin’ of it.  Here she comes now; must have taken the last train, after she had supper with ‘Lizy Jane.  You stay still; we’re goin’ to hear all about it.”

The small, thin figure of Mrs. Price had to be hailed twice before she could be stopped.

“I wish you a good evenin’, neighbors,” she said.  “I have been to the house of mournin’.”

“Find ’Liza Jane in, after the circus?” asked Isaac Brown, with equal seriousness.  “Excellent show, wasn’t it, for so late in the season?”

“Oh, beautiful; it was beautiful, I declare,” answered the pleased spectator readily.  “Why, I didn’t see you, nor Mis’ Brown.  Yes; I felt it best to refresh my mind an’ wear a cheerful countenance.  When I see ’Liza Jane I was able to divert her mind consid’able.  She was glad I went.  I told her I’d made an effort, knowin’ ’twas so she had to lose the a’ternoon.  ’Bijah left property, if he did die away from home on a foreign shore.”

“You don’t mean that ’Bijah Topliff’s left anything!” exclaimed John York with interest, while Isaac Brown put both hands deep into his pockets, and leaned back in a still more satisfactory position against the gatepost.