Miss Ri laughed. "Not exactly. At least I've sworn off before, but I am always seized with the craze as soon as I see the advertisement in the paper. Once I was cheated out of a dollar by getting a box of decayed fruit, and another time I got a parcel of old clothes that I gave to Randy after making her boil them to get rid of any lingering microbes. This is the third time I have been bamboozled, but very likely next time I will draw a prize. Goodness, Verlinda, if here doesn't come Grace and her sister. Do you suppose they are off for the city to-night?" "I think it is very probable," returned Linda as she followed Miss Ri to the door. Even though she did not admire Grace Talbot, Miss Ri could not be anything but graciously hospitable, and was ready to greet the visitors heartily as they came up on the porch. "Well, Mrs. Talbot," she exclaimed, "come right in. This is your sister, isn't it? How are you, Miss Johnson. It is lucky you chose Saturday when Linda is at home. You'll stay to dinner, of course. Here, let me take those bags. Are you on your way to the city?" "Yes," returned Grace, "we're leaving for the winter. Howdy, Linda." She viewed her sister-in-law critically, finding her paler and thinner, but keeping the discovery to herself. Lauretta, however, spoke her thought. "I don't believe town agrees with you as well as country, Linda. You look a little peaked." "That comes from being shut up in a school-room," Miss Ri hastened to say; "it is trying work." "She will get used to it in time," Grace replied. "Why, there is Miss Sally Price about as sturdy and rosy as anyone I know, and she's been teaching twenty-five years. What lovely old tables you have, Miss Ri. They remind me of grandmother's, don't they you, Lauretta? Dear grandmother, she was such a very particular old dame and would have her mahogany and silver always shining. I remember how she would say to her butler, 'James, that service is not as bright as it should be.'" Grace's imitation of her various forbears always conveyed the idea that they were most haughty and severe personages who never spoke except with military peremptoriness. She was constantly referring to grandmother Johnson, or great-uncle Blair or someone utterly irrelevant to the topic of the moment, and as entirely uninteresting to her audience. "Did you leave everything all right at the farm?" asked Linda, hastening to change the subject. She knew that great-uncle Blair would be paraded next, if the slightest opportunity was allowed. "Everything is as it should be," returned Grace high-and-mightily. "You didn't suppose for an instant, Linda, that I would leave anything at loose ends. Of course, it has been most arduous work for Lauretta and I, but we have the satisfaction of knowing that we have not neglected anything. I am completely fagged out, and feel that a rest is essential."