plate; a pitcher of water, carefully covered; a tumbler; a glass of port wine and a bottle of camphor.  Old Ann Maria Eustace took most of her sustenance at night.  Night was really her happy time.  When that worn, soft old bulk of hers was ensconsed among her soft pillows and feather bed and she had her eatables and drinkables and literature at hand, she was in her happiest mood and she was none the less happy from the knowledge that her daughters considered that any well conducted old woman should have beside her bed, merely a stand with a fair linen cloth, a glass of water, a candle and the Good Book, and that if she could not go immediately to sleep, she should lie quietly and say over texts and hymns to herself.  All Ann Maria’s spice of life was got from a hidden antagonism to her daughters and quietly flying in the face of their prejudices, and she was the sort of old lady who could hardly have lived at all without spice.

“Your Aunt Harriet will be hopping,” said the perverse old lady with another chuckle.

“Why, grandmother?”

“Harriet has had an eye on him herself.”

Annie gasped.  “Aunt Harriet must be at least twenty-five years older,” said she.

“Hm,” said the old lady, “that doesn’t amount to anything.  Harriet didn’t put on her pearl breast-pin and crimp her hair unless she had something in her mind.  Susan has given up, but Harriet hasn’t given up.”

Annie still looked aghast.

“When are you going to get married?” asked the old lady.

“I don’t know.”

“Haven’t settled that yet?  Well, when you do, there’s the white satin embroidered with white roses that I was married in and my old lace veil.  I think he’s a nice young man.  All I have against him is his calling.  You will have to go to meeting whether you want to or not and listen to the same man’s sermons.  But he is good looking and they say he has money, and anyway, the Eustaces won’t peter out in old maids.  There’s one thing I am sorry about.  Sunday is going to be a pretty long day for me, after you are married, and I suppose before.  If you are going to marry that man, I suppose you will have to begin going to meeting at once.”

Then Annie spoke decidedly.  “I am always going to play pinocle with you Sunday forenoons as long as you live, grandmother,” said she.

“After you are married?”

“Yes, I am.”

“After you are married to a minister?”

“Yes, grandmother.”

The old lady sat up straight and eyed Annie with her delighted china blue gaze.

“Mr. von Rosen is a lucky man,” said she.  “Enough sight luckier than he knows.  You are just like me, Annie Eustace, and your grandfather set his eyes by me as long as he lived.  A good woman who has sense enough not to follow all the rules and precepts and keep good, isn’t found every day, and she can hold a man and holding a man is about as tough a job as the Almighty ever set a woman.