"Of course you don’t. And you’re not going to die for ever and ever so long. You only feel a little low-spirited sometimes, perhaps. Isn’t that it? The country seems strange to you, I have no doubt. Why don’t you make some visits to your other sons and daughters?" Mrs. Ronald suggested craftily. "That would be a fine plan, I think. How glad they would be to see you after your long separation. And, oh, Martha, talking of visits—you know the visitor I told you we are expecting in August? I’m thinking of fitting up a little room especially for—for her. I have sent to Grand Rapids for all my dear old things, because I’ve a fancy they’ll help to make her feel as happy as they used to make me, and perhaps then she won’t get homesick, and want to slip away from us as—as visitors do, sometimes. My curtains were lovely, but I think they need a stitch here and there. If you will put them in order for me—mend them thoroughly, and launder them in your finest style, I’ll give you—let me see! the cleaners in town asked me fifteen dollars. I’ll pay you fifteen dollars." Fifteen dollars! Martha’s eyes gleamed. Here was her opportunity to earn the price of her ticket to New York and back. "You’ll do it?" "You betcher—I’ll do it with pleasure, an’ thank you for the chance, Miss Claire. An’—my! but if here ain’t Dr. Ballard, comin’ up the walk!" Martha performed the act of introduction with dignity, then quietly effaced herself, silently signaling her family to "fade away, an’ make room for your betters." Claire "took" to the newcomer at once, predisposed in his favor by a certain shadow of resemblance she saw, or thought she saw, to a friend of her youth, a certain Bob Van Brandt who, once upon a time, had laid his heart at her feet. There was the same manly frankness, the same touch of boyish impetuosity. She wondered if there were the same fatal lack of determination. What time she pondered, her husband was harking back to otherwhiles, when a Ballard had lived in the neighborhood. "My grandfather," the young man said quite simply. "He was bailiff, as they called it in those days, to Squire Stryker." Frank Ronald liked that. It rang true. Martha was not listening to the conversation. Her mind was full of the thought that now she could conscientiously go honeymooning with Sam. "It wouldn’ta been right to take the money outa the little we got saved," she ruminated. "That’s gotta stay where it is, no matter what. But if I do the curtain-job, I’ll have my own cash. I can go with my own man, an’ I wouldn’t call the queen my cousin." When, at length, the Ronalds took leave, Dr. Ballard, lingering, said: