The Oldfield people were so well used to seeing Sidney take her hair down, and twist it up again, even in the middle of the big road, that they had long since ceased to observe the hair itself. It was the meaning of the gestures that instantly caught and held the eager interest of the entire community. For, whenever Sidney took off her bonnet, and let down her hair and shook it vigorously and swished it up again into a tighter knot, and put the comb back with a certain degree of emphasis, everybody knew that there was something interesting in the wind. Poor Miss Sophia, who was not quick to understand many things, knew what _those_ signs meant, and when she saw them that day she straightened up suddenly, wide awake, and breathing hard as she always was when trying her best to keep the track of what was going on, and forgetting all about the seed-bags, which abruptly slid over the precipice, wholly unheeded. Even Miss Judy, who so disliked gossip, could not help feeling somewhat agreeably excited and turning quite pink, as she remembered that she had never known Sidney's news to do any harm, to wound any one, to injure any one, or to make mischief of any description. She had often wondered how Sidney _could_ talk all day long, day after day, year in and year out, going constantly from house to house without doing harm sometimes through sheer inadvertence. She now looked at Sidney in smiling expectancy, turning a rosier pink from growing anticipation. The mere fact of an unexpected visit from Sidney was enough to throw any Oldfield household into a state of delightful excitement. Sidney's visits were like visits of Royalty; they always had to be arranged for in advance, and they always had to be paid for afterwards. It was clearly understood by everybody that Sidney went nowhere without a formal invitation given some time in advance, and an explicit and sufficient inducement. Yet there was nothing in this to her discredit; she was far from being the mere sordid mercenary that Royalty seems now and then to be. Sidney was an open, upright worker in life's vineyard, and did nothing discreditable in holding herself worthy of her hire. It was necessary for her to earn a living for five needy souls; for her three children, her husband's brother, and herself. There were not many avenues open to women-workers in any part of the world in the day of Sidney's direst need. There were fewer where she lived than almost anywhere else throughout the civilized earth. She did what she might do; she learned to earn bread for her family by the only honorable means in her power. She studied to amuse the people of the village who had no other source of entertainment. She raised her adopted profession until it became an art. It is probable that she had the comedian's talent to begin with. She certainly possessed the comic actor's mouth. And then she doubtless soon learned, as most of us learn sooner or later, that it