he's dead 'n' buried anyway; 'n' as for sittin' on a porch himself, well, all is I know 't if it was me it 'd scorch my rockers." 

 "What time do you think 't you '11 get back?" asked Mrs. Lathrop. 

 "I ain't sure. 'F I should get real interested huntin' orphans, I might stay until it was too dark to see 'em good. I can't tell nothin' about it, though. You 'd better watch for the light in the kitchen, 'n' when you see it burnin' I wish 't you'd come right over." 

 Mrs. Lathrop agreed to this arrangement, and Miss Clegg went home to get ready for town. 

 She returned about five o'clock, and the mere general aspect of her approaching figure betokened some doing or doings so well worthy of neighborly interest that Mrs. Lathrop left her bread in the oven and flew to satisfy her curiosity. 

 She found her friend warming her feet by the kitchen stove, and one look at her radiant countenance sufficed. 

 "You found a baby!" 

 Susan upraised supremely joyful eyes. 

 "No," she replied, "but I've bought the weepin' lion!" 

 Mrs. Lathrop sat suddenly down. 

 "You never saw anythin' so grand in all your life! He rubbed the 'Blank' off with a wet cloth 'n' wrote in the 'Henry' with me standin' right there. I never see anythin' that went right through me that way before. Puttin' on 'Henry' seemed to bring the lion right into the family, an'—well, you can believe me or not jus' as you please, Mrs. Lathrop, but I up 'n' begin to cry right then 'n' there. The monument man made me sit down on a uncut block 'n' lean my back up against a No-Cross-no-Crown, 'n' while I sat there he chalked in father's birth 'n' death 'n' 'Erected by his devoted daughter Susan,' 'n' at that I stood right up 'n' said 't I 'd take it, 'n' it wasn't no hasty decision, neither, f'r after I 'd made up my mind I couldn't see no good reason for continuin' to sit there 'n' draw frost out o' granite 'n' into my shoulder-blades jus' for the looks o' the thing." 

 "But about the ba—" said Mrs. Lathrop. 

 "Oh, the baby 'll have to go. I told you all along 't it had to be one or t' other an' in the end it's the lion as has come out on top. I guess I was n't cut out to be a mother like I was a 

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