"I don't think that I should care to visit that way," said Gran'ma Mullins thoughtfully. "I wouldn't say I wouldn't, and I wouldn't say I couldn't, but I don't think--" "She's going Tuesday," continued Susan Clegg. "Mr. Sperrit says she can, and she's going Tuesday. She's written her cousin, and her cousin's written her. Her cousin says they'll be too glad for words, and for her to stay till Christmas--or till Thanksgiving, anyway. Mrs. Sperrit says she won't do that, but she'll stay until the end of next week if she can stand her cousin's husband. She says she never had any use for her cousin's husband, because he isn't practical either, and when he was young, his tie was never on straight. Mrs. Sperrit says a man that wears his tie crooked when he's young is the kind to keep shy of later. She says he'll never have a pocket knife and borrow hers, and never have a pencil and borrow hers. And then, too, she's almost sure as by this time he's spoilt her cousin's temper; and visiting a cousin whose temper's spoilt wouldn't be fun, even if she was practical. Which this one ain't." "If her cousin's got a sharp tongue I--" began Gran'ma Mullins in quiet, sad reminiscence. "She was buying some wood alcohol and a cheap spoon at Mr. Kimball's," Susan went on. "She took me in her buggy and drove me up to look at our houses, which is trying feebly to climb again to where they was before the cyclone. But they're a sorry sight. I don't know when we're ever going to get into them, I'm sure. I only wish Jathrop was to see how slow those carpenters can be." Then Miss Clegg's countenance assumed a coy expression, her eyes lowered bashfully, and her fingers nervously sought to touch between the buttons of her waist some treasured object hidden within. "I--I had a letter from him to-day." And at that all three listeners started in more or less violent amazement. "What!" cried Mrs. Lathrop. "Nothing that I can tell any one," said Susan serenely. "So it's no use asking me another word about it." Mrs. Sperrit left on Tuesday precisely and practically as she had planned; but she returned very much sooner than she had expected. "And no wonder," declared Susan, just back from the Sewing Society, to Mrs. Lathrop, who never went. "I should say it was no wonder. Well, Mrs. Sperrit has had an experience, and I guess no lost barn will ever lead her into looking up no more cousins after this." "She's so worn-looking," said Gran'ma Mullins, who had returned with Susan. "I wouldn't say white, and I wouldn't say worried, but I call it peaked." "Why, she's been through enough to make a book," said Mrs. Macy, who had come in with the others, "--a book like _The Jungle_, as makes you right down sick in spots."