brick chimney.

“Who lives in the next house?” she inquired, in an attempt to turn the unpleasant tide of the conversation. If she had felt resentment at her aunt’s remarks, she at least did not show it.

“What?”

“I was wondering who lived in the next house.”

“The Howes.”

“I did not realize last night that you had 54 neighbors so near at hand,” continued the girl brightly. “Tell me about them.”

54

“There’s nothin’ to tell.”

“I mean who is in the family?”

“There’s Martin Howe an’ his three sisters, if that’s what you want to know,” snapped Ellen.

Lucy, however, was not to be rebuffed. She attributed her aunt’s ungraciousness to her irritation about the breakfast and, determining to remain unruffled, she went on patiently:

“It’s nice for you to have them so near, isn’t it?”

“It don’t make no difference to me, their bein’ there. I don’t know ’em.” For some reason that Lucy could not fathom, the woman’s temper seemed to be rising, and being a person of tact she promptly shifted the subject.

“No matter about the Howes any more, Aunt Ellen,” she said, smiling into the other’s frowning face. “Tell me instead what you want me to do to help you to-day? Now that I’m here you must divide the work with me so I may have my share.”

Although Ellen did not return the smile, the scowl on her forehead relaxed. 55

55

“You’ll find plenty to keep you busy, I guess,” she returned. “There’s all the housework to be done—dishes, beds, an’ sweepin’; an’ then there’s milk to set an’ skim; eggs to collect an’ pack for market; hens to feed; an’——”

“Goodness me!”

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