"I can't see why," retorted Nancy. "Just look at mother. What would she have done with us if she hadn't understood business?" Miss Townsend sighed. "Being a widow, my dear--" "But I may be a widow too," breezed Nancy. "In fact I'm sure to, for everyone says I'm so much like mother. Do let me fix that box of spools, Miss Townsend. Someone came in for linen thread last night and Teddy looked for it. I'm sure he gave them a ball of cord, for all the cord was scattered around too." She put the cover on the thread box. "Boys are rather poor at business, I think, especially boys of Teddy's age," orated the important Nancy. Miss Townsend agreed without saying so. She was looking over the little place in a fidgety, nervous way. Nancy quickly decided this was due to regret that she had given the place up, and therefore sought to make her feel at ease. The little brown dog had curled himself up in front of the fireplace on a piece of rug, evidently his own personal property. The fireplace was closed up and the stove set back against it, out of the way for summer, and handy-by for winter. Nancy smiled at the woman who was moving about in a sort of aimless restlessness. "It must seem natural to you to be around here," Nancy ventured. "Yes, after thirty years--" "Thirty years!" repeated Nancy, incredulously. "Did you and your brother live here all that time?" "Yes." A prolonged sigh brought Miss Townsend down on the old hickory chair that stood by the door, just out of the way of possible customers. "Brother Elmer and I kept on here after mother died. In fact, so far as I was concerned, we might have gone on until we died, but there was a little trouble--" "Just like me and my brother, I suppose," intervened Nancy, kindly. "We love each other to death, and yet we are always scrapping." "In children's way, but that's different, very different," insisted Miss Townsend. "With me and Elmer," she sighed again, "it became a very, very serious matter." "Oh," faltered Nancy. Things were becoming uncomfortable. That kitchen work would be growing more formidable, and Nancy had really wanted to settle the store. She would love to do that, to put all the little things in their places, or in new places, as she would surely find a new method for their arrangement. She hurried over to the corner shelves. "I hope no one comes in until I get the place fixed up," she remarked. "Mother doesn't intend to buy much new stock until she sees how we get along." "That's wise," remarked Miss Townsend. "I suppose I know every stick in the place," she looked about critically, "and yet I could be just as interested. I wonder if you wouldn't like me to help you fix things up? I'd just love to do it." Now this was exactly what Nancy did not want. In fact, she was wishing earnestly that the prim Miss Townsend would take herself off and leave her to do as she pleased.