It was five o’clock when Mrs. Hanna, with a sigh, began rolling the lace she had crocheted around the spool, preparatory to taking her departure. “Well,” she said, “I must go. I had no idy it was so late. How the time does go, a-talkin’. I’ve had a right nice time. Just see how well I’ve done—crocheted full a yard since dinner-time! My! how pretty that hop-vine looks. It makes awful nice shade, too. I guess when Mis’ Lane planted it she thought she’d be settin’ under it herself to-day—she took such pleasure in it.” The ladies were sitting on the front porch. It was cool and fragrant out there. The shadow of the house reached almost to the gate now. The bees had been drinking too many sweets—greedy fellows!—and were lying in the red poppies, droning stupidly. A soft wind was blowing from Puget Sound and turning over the clover leaves, making here a billow of dark green and there one of light green; it was setting loose the perfume of the blossoms, too, and sifting silken thistle-needles through the air. Along the fence was a hedge, eight feet high, of the beautiful ferns that grow luxuriantly in western Washington. The pasture across the lane was a tangle of royal color, being massed in with golden-rod, fire-weed, steeple-bush, yarrow, and large field-daisies; the cotton-woods that lined the creek at the side of the house were snowing. Here and there the sweet twin-sister of the steeple-bush lifted her pale and fluffy plumes; and there was one lovely, lavender company of wild asters. Mrs. Bridges arose and followed her guest into the spare bedroom. “When they goin’ to take her to the poor-farm?” she asked, abruptly. “Day after to-morrow. Ain’t it awful? It just makes me sick. I couldn’t of eat a bite o’ dinner if I’d stayed at home, just for thinkin’ about it. They say the poor, old creature ain’t done nothin’ but cry an’ moan ever since she knowed she’d got to go.” “Here’s your bag,” said Mrs. Bridges. “Do you want I should tie your veil?” “No, thanks; I guess I won’t put it on. If I didn’t have such a big fam’ly an’ my own mother to keep, I’d take her in myself before I’d see her go to the poor-house. If I had a small fam’ly an’ plenty o’ room, I declare my conscience wouldn’t let me sleep nights.” A deep red glow spread over Mrs. Bridges’s face. “Well, I guess you needn’t to keep a-hintin’ for me to take her,” she said, sharply. “_You!_” Mrs. Hanna uttered the word in a tone that was an unintentional insult; in fact, Mrs. Bridges affirmed afterward that her look of astonishment, and, for that matter, her whole air of dazed incredulity were insulting. “I never once thought o’ _you_,” she said, with an earnestness that could not be doubted. “Why not o’ me?” demanded Mrs. Bridges, showing something of her resentment. “What you been talkin’ an’ harpin’ about her all day for, if you wasn’t hintin’ for me to take her in?”