"It ain't goin' to cost but jest three dollars an' sixty cents," said Mrs. Babcock. "I guess you can afford that, Mandy. There your tenement didn't stay vacant two weeks after the Fields went; the Simmonses came right in. I guess if I had rent-money, an' nobody but myself, I could afford to travel once in a while." "Now you'd better make up your mind to go, Mandy," Mrs. Green said. "I think Mis' Field would be more pleased to see you than anybody in Green River. That's one thing I think about goin'. I know she'll be tickled almost to death to see us comin' in. Mis' Field's a real good woman. There wa'n't anybody in town I set more by than I did by her." "When did you hear from her last, Mandy?" interposed Mrs. Babcock. "About a month ago." "I s'pose Lois is a good deal better?" "Yes, I guess she is. Her mother said she seemed pretty well for her. I s'pose it agrees with her better down there." "I s'pose there was a good deal more fuss made about her when she was here than there was any need of," said Mrs. Babcock, her whole face wrinkled upward contemptuously; "a great deal more fuss. There wa'n't nothin' ailed the girl if folks had let her alone, talkin' an' scarin' her mother to death. She was jest kind of run down with the spring weather. Young girls wilt down dreadful easy, an' spring up again. I've seen 'em. 'Twa'n't nothin'." "Well, I dunno; she looked dreadfully," Mrs. Green said, with mild opposition. "Well, you can see how much it amounted to," returned Mrs. Babcock, with a triumphant sniff. "Folks ought to have been ashamed of themselves, scarin' Mis' Field the way they did about her. Seemed as if they was determined to have Lois go into consumption whether or no, an' was goin' to push her in, if they couldn't manage it in no other way. I s'pose you've sent all Mis' Field's things down there, Mandy?" "The furniture is all up garret," said Amanda. "All I've sent down was their clothes. Mis' Field had me pack 'em up in their two trunks, an' send 'em down to Lois. I didn't see why she didn't have me mark 'em to her." "I should think it was kind of queer," said Mrs. Green. "Now s'pose we go, what had we better carry for clothes? We don't need no trunk." "Of course we don't," said Mrs. Babcock promptly. "We can each carry a bag. We ain't going to need much." "I guess, if I went," said Amanda, "that I should carry this sacque to slip on, if it's as hot weather as 'tis now. I should have to do it up, but that ain't much work." Mrs. Babcock eyed it. "Well, I dunno," said she; "it's pretty long in the shoulders seams. I dunno how much they dress down there where Mis' Field lives. Mebbe 'twould do." "There's one thing I've been thinkin' about," Mrs. Green said, with an anxious air. "If we go down on that early train, an' stay all day in Boston, we shall have to buy us something to eat; we should get dreadful faint before we got out to Mis' Field's, and things are dreadful high in those places."