the thought of the ramshackle ancestral halls of the Pograms. “As I say,” continued Mrs. Pogram, “if Rosalie could have worked with me we’d ha’ kep’ Loomis smoothed down; but after the spoon trouble that young one acted like all possessed. Every time Loomis came she’d throw out remarks to scare him. ‘Oh, Auntie Pogram,’ she’d say, ‘just look how exactly the right height this work-table is for me to set by. It’s the real stuff this wood is;’ and then she’d gaze at it kinder thoughtful. ‘If[43] this was polished up, that grain would come out beautiful.’ Then there is a silver slop-bowl and creamer that was my mother’s. ‘Oh, Auntie Pogram,’ she’d say, and just clasp her hands and gaze at ’em like they was magnets and she a needle. ‘How easy it is, after all, to tell the real antiquities from the made-up ones,’ she’d say. ‘How I do love that colonial pattern!’ And all the time Loomis would fidget and run his fingers through his hair and get red in the face. After he’d go I’d talk to her, but she wouldn’t do a thing but laugh till the tears come in her eyes.” Mrs. Pogram nodded significantly. “But the day came when there was more tears and not so much laugh. Loomis got so he come down every Saturday night. He made a list of all the silver and he’d count ’em out, forks and spoons, every time he came. One Sunday night he said something real downright mean to Rosalie about beggars not bein’ choosers. I spoke up for the girl then and there. I said Rosalie had earned everything she’d had from me and earned it fully. I can see her now standin’ there, and the way her nostrils opened when she breathed. I don’t think I ever saw her as good-lookin’ as she[44] was that minute. Her light hair was just fluffin’ out like a cloud, and her blue eyes turned nearly black, and her lips was bit in between her teeth till she scared me the way she looked at Loomis. Then she went out o’ the room without a word. The next mornin’ she didn’t get up at half-past four to get Loomis’s breakfast, the way she had to when he stayed Sunday nights. I hadn’t thought she would, and I got up in my double-gown and found him drinkin’ some cold milk, and growlin’. Loomis likes his coffee. I told him ’twas his own fault, and he told me to go to bed and stay there,—’twas all I was fit for.” Mrs. Pogram sniffed again and shook the fish mechanically. [43] [44] “I didn’t hear any sound in Rosalie’s room when Loomis slammed the front door; so after a spell I went in to find her and try to make peace, but—” the speaker shook her head—“there wa’n’t any Rosalie. Her bed was made up neat and there was a note on
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