"You have just hit it, Aunt Priscilla," she said. "Winthrop wanted to pay her board, but Foster just wouldn't hear to it, this year at least. We have all taken a great liking to her, and she is to be our visitor from now until summer, when some other plans are to be made." "Well--if you have money to throw away----" gasped Aunt Priscilla. "She won't eat more than a chicken, and she'll sleep in Betty's bed. It will help steady Betty and be an interest to all of us. I really couldn't think of charging. It's like having one of the grandchildren here. And she needs a mother's care. Think of the poor little girl with not a near relative! Aunt Priscilla, there's a good many things money can't buy." Aunt Priscilla sniffed. "Take off your bonnet and have a cup of tea," Mrs. Leverett had asked her when she first came in. "It's such a long walk back to King Street on an empty stomach. The children are making cookies, but Betty shall brew a cup of tea at once, unless you'll wait till the men folks come in." Aunt Priscilla sat severe and undecided for a moment. The laughing voices in the other room piqued and vexed and interested her all in a breath. She had come over to hear about Doris. There was so little interest in her methodical old life. Mrs. Leverett sincerely pitied women who had no children and no grandchildren. "They're quite as queer as old maids without the real excuse," she said to her husband. "They've missed the best things out of their lives without really knowing they were the best." And perhaps at this era more respect was paid to age. There were certain trials and duties to life that men and women accepted and did not try to evade. A modern happy woman would have been bored at the call of a dissatisfied old woman every few days. But since the death of Mehitable Doule, Priscilla's own cousin, who had been married from her house, she had clung more to the Leveretts. Foster was too easy-going, otherwise she had not much fault to find with him. He had prospered and was forehanded, and his married son and daughters had been fairly successful. "Well, I don't care if I do," said Aunt Priscilla, with a half-reluctance. "Though I hadn't decided to when I came away, and Polly'll make a great hole in that cold roast pork, for I never said a word as to what she should have for supper. She's come to have no more sense than a child, and some things are bad to eat at night. But if she makes herself sick she'll have to suffer." "I'll have some tea made----" "No, 'Lizabeth, don't fuss. I shan't be in any hurry, if I do stay, and the men will be in before long. So Winthrop wasn't real put out when he saw the girl?" "I think he liked her. He's not much hand to make a fuss, you know. He feels she must be well brought up. Her mother, it seems, was quite quality." "Queer the mother's folks didn't look after her."