Tabitha listened with a swiftly mounting impatience of her speechless condition, and a great sickening of the task of watching the cockade of the coachman outside, which she had imposed upon herself, as the talk went on. She heard Reuben say that he would gladly raise a subscription for the work; she heard Kate ask to be allowed to head the list with whatever sum he thought best, and then to close the list with whatever additional sum was needed to make good the total amount required; she heard Jessica, overcome with delight, stammer out thanks for this unlooked-for adoption and endowment of her poor little plan, and then she could stand it no longer. “Have you quite settled what you will do with my house?” she asked, still keeping her face toward the door. “There are some other places along here belonging to me--that is, they always have up to now--but of course if you have plans about them, too, just tell me, and--” “Don’t be absurd, Tabitha,” said Miss Minster, rising from her chair as she spoke. “Of course we took your assent for granted from the start. I believe, candidly, that you are more enthusiastic about it this moment than even we are.” Reuben thought that the old lady dissembled her enthusiasm skilfully, but at least she offered no dissent. A few words more were exchanged, the lawyer promising again his aid, and Miss Minster insisting that she herself wanted the task of drawing up, in all its details, the working plan for the new institution, and, on second thoughts, would prefer to pay for it all herself. “I have been simply famishing for something to do all these years,” she said, in smiling confidence, to Tracy, “and here it is at last. You can’t guess how happy I shall be in mapping out the whole thing--rules and amusements and the arrangements of the rooms and the furnishing, and--everything.” Perhaps Jessicas face expressed too plainly the thought that this bantling of hers, which had been so munificently adopted, bade fair to be taken away from her altogether, for Miss Minster added: “Of course, when the sketch is fairly well completed, I will show it to _you_, and we will advise together,” and Jessica smiled again. When the two ladies were seated again in the sleigh, and the horses had pranced their way through the wet snow up to the beaten track once more, Miss Tabitha said: “I never knew a girl to run on so in all my born days. Here you are, seeing these two people for the very first time half an hour ago, and you’ve tied yourself up to goodness only knows what. One would think you’d known them all your life, the way you said ditto to every random thing that popped into their heads. And a pretty penny they’ll make it cost you, too! And what will your mother say?” Miss Minster smiled good-naturedly, and patted her companion’s gloved hand with her own. “Never you worry, Tabitha,” she said, softly. “Don’t talk, please, for a minute. I want to think.”