"Well, Susan," Mrs. Macy remarked meditatively, "I never looked to see you leave your house any way except feet first. Well, well, this certainly is a funny world." "Yes," returned Susan, brief for once, "it certainly is." "It's a very sad world, I think," contributed Gran'ma Mullins with a heavy, heavy sigh. "My goodness, to think this time last spring Hiram was spading up the potato patch! And now where is he?" "Nobody knows," answered Susan. "See how many years it was till Jathrop come back. But I do hope for your sake, Gran'ma Mullins, that when Hiram does come back he won't take it into his head to buy this house and build it over for you." Gran'ma Mullins looked at Mrs. Macy, and Mrs. Macy looked back at Gran'ma Mullins, and a message flashed and was answered in the glances. "Well, Susan," said Gran'ma Mullins with neighborly interest, "you do see that the house needs fixing up, don't you?" Susan was the owner and Mrs. Macy only the tenant, and the implication was not at all pleasing to her. She turned with the air of the weariest worm that had ever done so and gave Gran'ma Mullins a look that could only be translated as an admonition to mind her own business. Whereupon Gran'ma Mullins promptly subsided, and the subject did not come up again. It was on a Monday--the very next Monday--that the workmen arrived and set to work to demolish the outer casing of the homes of Susan and Mrs. Lathrop. Susan went up and stood about for an hour, viewing the way they did it with great but resigned scorn. She went every day thereafter, and her heart was rent at the sight of the sacrilege. Then, to add to her woe, Gran'ma Mullins proved less soothing than had been expected, and Susan suffered keenly at her hands.