“Yes, after thirty years—”

“Thirty years!” repeated Nancy, incredulously. “Did you and your brother live here all that time?”

“Yes.” A prolonged sigh brought Miss Townsend down on the old hickory chair that stood by the door, just out of the way of possible customers.

“Brother Elmer and I kept on here after mother died. In fact, so far as I was concerned, we might have gone on until we died, but there was a little trouble—”

“Just like me and my brother, I suppose,” intervened Nancy, kindly. “We love each other to death, and yet we are always scrapping.”

“In children’s way, but that’s different, very different,” insisted Miss Townsend. “With me and Elmer,” she sighed again, “it became a very, very serious matter.”

“Oh,” faltered Nancy. Things were becoming uncomfortable. That kitchen work would be growing more formidable, and Nancy had really wanted to settle the store. She would love to do that, to put all the little things in their places, or in new places, as she would surely find a new method for their arrangement. She hurried over to the corner shelves.

“I hope no one comes in until I get the place fixed up,” she remarked. “Mother doesn’t intend to buy much new stock until she sees how we get along.”

“That’s wise,” remarked Miss Townsend. “I suppose I know every stick in the place,” she looked about critically, “and yet I could be just as interested. I wonder if you wouldn’t like me to help you fix things up? I’d just love to do it.”

Now this was exactly what Nancy did not want. In fact, she was wishing earnestly that the prim Miss Townsend would take herself off and leave her to do as she pleased.

“That’s kind of you, I’m sure,” she said, “but the idea was that I should be manager from the start,” Nancy laughed lightly to justify this claim, “and I’m sure mother would be better pleased if I put the shop in order. You can come in and see me again when I’m all fixed up,” (this gentle hint was tactful, thought Nancy) “and then you can tell me what you think of me as the manager of the Whatnot Shop.”

Miss Townsend was actually poking in the corner near the hearth shelf where matches, in a tin container, were kept. She heard Nancy but did not heed her.

“Looking for something?” the girl asked a 

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