"Dearie me, I can't hardly stand it to hear you speak, it are so sweet!" exclaimed Mother Mayberry in positive rapture and again the tears filled her eyes, while her face crinkled up into a dimpled smile. "Don't say nothing where the mocking-birds will hear you, please, 'cause they'll begin to hatch out a dumb race from plumb discouragement. Come out on the porch where it ain't so hot, but I'm a-holding on to you to keep you from flying up into one of the trees. I'm a-going to set about building a cage for you right--" "Now, didn't I tell you about that slippery-ellum!" came in a positively triumphant voile to greet them as they stepped out of the front door. Mrs. Peavey was ascending the steps all out of breath, her decorous hat awry, and her eyes snapping with excitement. "Course I don't think this can be no positive cure and like as not you'll wake up to-morrow with your voice all gone dry again, but it were the slippery-ellum that done it!" "I think it must have helped some," answered the singer lady in the clear voice that still held its wonted note of meekness to her neighbor. "Course it did! Tom Mayberry's experimenting couldn'ter done it no real good. His mother have been giving that biled bark for sore throat for thirty years and it was me that remembered it. But it were a pity you done it at the grave; that were Mis' Bostick's funeral and not your'n. Now look at everybody a-coming up the Road with no grieving left at all." "Oh, Hettie Ann," exclaimed Mother Mayberry in quick distress, "it are a mean kind of sorrow that can't open its arms to hold joy tender. Think what it do mean to the child and--Look at Bettie!" And indeed it was a sight to behold the pretty mother of the seventeen sailing up the front walk like a great full-rigged ship. Miss Wingate flew down the steps to meet her and in a few seconds was enveloped and involved with little Hoover in an embrace that threatened to be disastrous to all concerned. Judy Pike was close behind and, making a grab on her own part, stood holding the end of the singer lady's sash in her one hand while Teether, from her other arm, caught at the bright ribbons and squealed with delight. The abashed Pattie hung over the front gate and Buck grinned in the rear. "Lawsy me, child," Mrs. Hoover laughed and sobbed as she patted the singer lady on the back, little Hoover anywhere he came upmost and included Teether and Judy also in the demonstration, "I feel like it would take two to hold me down! You sure sing with as much style as you dress! And to think such a thing have happened to all of us here in Providence. We won't never need that phonygraph we all are a-hankering after now. Speak up to the child, Judy Pike!"