"She ain't my mother--she's my mother-in-law," broke in Mrs. Katie Croft, instantly indignant over so false an imputation. "Good lands, the very idea! My mother! And never one single stroke of paralysis nor nothing in my family, and all reading the Bible without glasses right up till they died." "You see, it would give you a little rest, too," Jane continued, "and it would do Aunt Susan good to feel that she was helping a weaker--" "She ain't weak," broke in Katie Croft, again; "my lands, she's strong as a lady-ox. Anything she makes up her mind to keep she lays hold of with a grip as makes you fairly sick all up and down your back. You don't know perhaps, Miss Grey, as my husband died in our youth, and I come to live with his mother as a sacred duty, and I tell you frankly that I wish I'd never been born or that he'd never been born, forty times an hour--I do." "You'll like a week alone, I'm sure," said Jane serenely, "and we'll like to have your mother-in-law. Perhaps she'll get a few new ideas--" "She's stubborn as a mule," interrupted the daughter-in-law. "But may I see her and ask her? I do so want to help you a little. Life must have been so hard for you these last years." "Hard!" said Katie Croft, with emphasis. "Hard! Well, I'll tell you what it is, Miss Grey,--to marry a young man as was meek as Moses and then have him just fade right straight out and get a mother-in-law like that old--that old--that old--well, I'll tell you frankly she's a siren and nothing else." (Young Mrs. Croft probably meant "vixen," but Jane did not notice.) "My life ain't really worth a shake-up of mustard and vinegar some days. What I have suffered!" "I know more than you think," said Jane sympathetically; "nurses take care of so many kinds of people. But do let me ask her. If she likes to come to us, it'll be a great rest to you, and perhaps it'll do her a little good, too." "I can't understand you're wanting her," said Katie. "It's all over town how queer you are, but I never thought that anybody could be as queer as that!" "Do let us go to her," Jane urged. Katie rose and forthwith conducted the caller to old Mrs. Croft's room, a large, square place adorned with no end of black daguerreotypes and faded photographs. "Mother, it's Miss Grey. You know?--she's Mrs. Ralston's niece." Old Mrs. Croft received her visitor with acutely suspicious eyes. "Well?" she said tartly. Jane took her hand, but she jerked it smartly away. "Sit down anywhere," said Katie; "she hears well." "Hear!" said old Mrs. Croft. "I should say I did hear. There ain't a pan fell in the neighborhood for the last ten years as hasn't woke me out of a sound sleep, dreaming of my husband--" "Miss Grey's come to see you about something," interrupted Katie; "she--"