“He’s thinkin’ it out himself,” she declared. “That would be his way. Some of these days he’ll dump down on both of us like a tipcart load of clamshells, see if he don’t.” Which was precisely what he did. Reliance came into the room one morning and found him propped in the rocker and awaiting her. “What have you done to Nabby Gifford?” she asked. “She looks scared to death. What have you been sayin’ to her?” He did not reply. Instead he gave an order, in quite his old way. “You sit down alongside here,” he commanded. “That’s right. Now then, let’s hear what you have got to say? Nabby has told me her end of the yarn and I dragged what I could out of the doctor. No, no! I’ll do the bulk of the talking. You can say yes or no. Do you understand?” She smiled. “I shouldn’t wonder if I did, Foster,” she replied. “I’ll try to, anyway.” “Humph! All right. Now then; is it true that you have been living in this house for three weeks or more? Taking care of me?” “Helpin’ take care of you--yes. Nabby has done as much--or more.” “What did you do that for?” “Somebody had to. You told Nabby that you would throw a regular nurse out of the window. I knew you couldn’t do that to me.” “Humph! If I had had my senses I should have tried. Who is running the post office?” “I am. I go down there before the mails come in and when the outgoin’ mail has to be got ready. Millard and Abbie are there other times.” “How about your bonnet making?” “I do my share of that. I have finished two hats right here in this room. They were pretty good-lookin’ hats, too, if I do say it.” “Humph!... Pshaw!... Well, here’s the real thing I want to know: Is it true that somebody else--Eben Hopkins’s family--are living in that house I rent to you?” “Why, yes, it is. I couldn’t live in it. I had enough to keep me busy up here. Eben is dreadfully anxious to buy that house; you know that. I couldn’t sell it to him, for it isn’t mine to sell.” “No,” emphatically, “you are right, it isn’t.” “But I could rent it to him for six months; sublet it at a bigger rent than I pay you, and make a little extra money. So that is what I did. He’s taken it furnished, with my things in it. By the time his six months are up he’ll want to buy it more than ever, or I miss my guess. If you take my advice you’ll sell it to him.” He tried to lean forward in the chair, gave it up and sank back again. “Do you mean to tell me,” he demanded, angrily, “that you have let another tenant into my house without asking me whether you could or not?” “I couldn’t ask you. You were too sick to be asked anything.” “Is there a clause in your lease that gives you the right to sublet?”