"Land, no, Mis' Childs!" the woman reassured her; "he don't ever come down 'thout his ma or Miss Carter's along with him." Mrs. Childs nodded in a relieved way, and went on up to the sitting-room where, as she had been warned, she and Mr. Arthur Weston, one of the trustees of what was popularly known as "the old Andy Payton estate," were to "sit in judgment." "It _is_ hard for Fred to have Mortimore in the house," she thought, kindly; "poor Freddy!" The sitting-room was in the ell, and pausing on the landing at the steps that led up to it, she looked furtively beyond it, toward another room at the end of the hall. "I wonder if Ellen ever forgets to lock the door on her side?" she thought;--"well, Nelly dear, how are you?" she called out, cheerfully. Mrs. Payton, bustling forward to meet her, overflowed with exclamations of gratitude for her visit. "And such unpleasant weather, too! I do hope you didn't get your feet damp? I always tell Freddy there is no surer way to take cold than to get your feet damp. Of course she doesn't believe me, but I'm used to that! Is William's cold better? I suppose he's glad of an excuse to stay indoors and read about Bacon and Shakespeare; which was which? I never can remember! Now sit right down here. No, take this chair!" The caller, moving from one chair to another, was perfectly docile; it was Ellen's way, and Mrs. Childs had long ago discovered the secret of a peaceful life, namely, always, so far as possible, to let other people have their own way. She looked about the sitting-room, and thought that her sister-in-law was very comfortable. "Laura would have teased me to death if I had kept my old-fashioned things," she reflected. The room was feminine as well as old-fashioned; the deeply upholstered chairs and couches were covered with flounced and flowery chintz; on a green wire plant-stand, over-watered ferns grew daily more scraggy and anemic; the windows were smothered in lambrequins and curtains, and beadwork valances draped corner brackets holding Parian marble statuettes; of course there was the usual womanish clutter of photographs in silver frames. On the center-table a slowly evolving picture puzzle had pushed a few books to one side--pretty little books with pretty names, _Flowers of Peace_ and _Messages from Heaven_, most of them with the leaves still uncut. It was an eminently comfortable room; indeed, next to her conception of duty, the most important thing in Mrs. Andrew Payton's life was comfort.