“My!” she exclaimed, with a sigh. “I don’t wonder Millard called me crazy. I haven’t been so upset for I don’t know when. It was findin’ out that he was responsible for my bein’ made postmistress that got me so. The rest of it I kind of expected--that is, I rather guessed he had come to ask for Esther. Yes, I did. Nabby Gifford told me how lonesome he was nowadays and before Arabella Townsend died--a fortni’t or two before she was taken sick--she came to see me about a hat I was makin’ for her, and somethin’ she said then set me thinkin’. She was pretty confidential--she was like that sometimes with me--and she told me that the greatest trial of hers and Foster’s lives was that the only child they had died when it was a baby and that they didn’t have any more. She asked a lot about you, Esther, about what sort of a girl you were and about your singin’ and all, and--well, it made me wonder. And I knew perfectly well that whatever she wanted her husband would let her have. She was the only person on earth who could get past that stubborn streak of his.... Humph! And he called _me_ pig-headed! _He_ did!” Her half-brother had kept quiet as long as he could. “Well, well, well!” he cried. “What if he did! He didn’t mean nothin’. You and Esther don’t seem to realize what else he said. He’s offerin’ us a home in the finest house in Ostable County. Horses and teams to ride around in, no bills to pay, nothin’ to worry about, no work--that is, nothin’ except--” “Oh, do stop! I declare I believe you’d just as soon be a ‘tail’ as anything else. All a tail has to do is brush off flies and that would just suit you.” “Look here! I don’t care to have you talk to me that way.” “All right, I’m not talkin’ to you. I’m talkin’ to somebody else. So I wasn’t so surprised when he offered to adopt you, Esther, for adoption is what it amounts to. When he took me aboard too--yes, yes, and you, Millard--I was surprised, but of course I could see why he did it, anybody could. If he hadn’t crowed over me about that post-office appointment! I never once supposed _he_ got it for me.... Oh, I don’t doubt he did! He runs everything in this part of the state. But it hurts my pride--and it makes me just as mad now when I think of it.” Again Esther tried to calm her. “Never mind whether he did or not, Auntie dear,” she urged. “You have kept it ever since and everybody says you are the best postmistress the town ever had. And, after all,” she added, “if he did get the appointment, he did it to help you, didn’t he? It seems to me that was--well, kind of him.”