Cousin Ann refused to let Gilbert try again on the bedstead, and refused part of Mrs. Carey's bed, preferring to sleep on two hair mattresses laid on her bedroom floor. "They may not be comfortable," she said tersely, "but at least they will not endanger my life." The next morning's post brought business letters, and Cousin Ann feared she would have to leave Beulah, although there was work for a fortnight to come, right there, and Margaret had not strength enough to get through it alone. She thought the chimneys were full of soot, and didn't believe the kitchen stove would ever draw; she was sure that there were dead toads and frogs in the well; the house was inconvenient and always would be till water was brought into the kitchen sink; Julia seemed to have no leaning towards housework and had an appetite that she could only describe as a crime, inasmuch as the wherewithal to satisfy it had to be purchased by others; the climate was damp because of the river, and there was no proper market within eight miles; Kathleen was too delicate to live in such a place, and the move from Charlestown was an utter and absolute and entire mistake from A to Z. Then she packed her small trunk and Gilbert ran to the village on glad and winged feet to get some one to take his depressing relative to the noon train to Boston. As for Nancy, she stood in front of the parlor fireplace, and when she heard the hoot of the engine in the distance she removed the four mortuary vases from the mantelpiece and took them to the attic, while Gilbert from the upper hall was chanting a favorite old rhyme:-- "She called us names till she was tired, She called us names till we perspired, She called us names we never could spell, She called us names we never may tell. "She called us names that made us laugh, She called us names for a day and a half, She called us names till her memory failed, But finally out of our sight she sailed." "It must have been written about Cousin Ann in the first place," said Nancy, joining Kathleen in the kitchen. "Well, she's gone at last! "Now every prospect pleases, And only Julia's vile," she paraphrased from the old hymn, into Kathleen's private ear. "You oughtn't to say such things, Nancy," rebuked Kathleen. "Mother wouldn't like it." "I know it," confessed Nancy remorsefully. "I have been wicked since the moment I tried to get rid of You Dirty Boy. I don't know what's the matter with me. My blood seems to be too red, and it courses wildly through my veins, as the books say. I am going to turn over a new leaf, now that Cousin Ann's gone and our only cross is Julia!"