The rap at the Norths' front door was of the sort which would impel the dead to rise and answer it. Before the echo of the imperative summons had died away, Miriam had opened it and admitted Miss Mattie.

"I was sewin' over to my house," announced the visitor, settling herself comfortably, "and I surmised as how you might be sewin' over here, so I thought we might as well set together for a spell. I believe in bein' neighbourly."

Barbara smiled a welcome and Miriam brought in a quilt which she was binding by hand. As she worked, she studied Miss Mattie furtively, and with an air of detachment.

"I come over on the trail Roger has wore in the grass," continued Miss Mattie, biting off her thread with a snap. "He's organised himself into sort of a travellin' library, I take it, what with transportin' books at all hours back and forth. After I go to bed, Roger lets himself out and sneaks over here, carryin' readin' matter both ways. But land's sake," she chuckled, "I ain't carin' what he does after I get sleepy. I was never one to stay up after nine o'clock for the sake of entertainment. If there's sickness, or anythin' like that, of course it's a different matter.

"Roger's pa was always a great one for readin', and we've both inherited it from him. Roger sits with his books and I sit with my paper, and we both read, never sayin' a word to each other, till almost nine o'clock. We're what you might call a literary family.

"I'm just readin' a perfectly beautiful story called Margaret Merriman, or the Maiden's Mad Marriage. Margaret must have been worth lookin' at, for she had golden hair and eyes like sapphires and ruby lips and pearly teeth. I was readin' the description of her to Roger, and he said she seemed to be what some people would call 'a jewel of a girl.'

"Margaret Merriman's mother died when she was an infant in arms, just like your ma, Barbara, and left her to her pa. Her pa didn't marry again, though several was settin' their caps for him on account of him bein' young and handsome and havin' a lot of money. I suppose bein' a widower had somethin' to do with it, too. It does beat all how women will run after a widower. I suppose they want a man who's already been trained, but, speakin' for myself, I've always felt as if I'd rather have somethin' fresh and do my own trainin'—women's notions differ so about husbands.

"Just think what it would be to marry a man, thinkin' he was all trained, and to find out that it had been done wrong. You'd have to begin all over again, and it'd be harder than startin' in with absolute ignorance. The man would get restless, too. When he thought he was graduated and was about ready to begin on a post-graduate course, he'd find himself in the kindergarten, studyin' with beads and singin' about little raindrops.

"Gettin' an idea into a man's head is like furnishin' a room. If you can once get a piece of furniture where you want it, it can stay there until it's worn out or busted, except for occasional dustin' and repairin'. You can add from time to time as you have to, but if you attempt to refurnish a room that's all furnished, and do it all at once, you're bound to make more disturbance than housecleanin'.

"It has to be done slow and careful, unless you have a likin' for rows, and if you're one of those kind of women that's forever changin' their minds about furniture and their husband's ideas, you're bound to have a terrible restless marriage.

"Roger's pa was fresh when I took him, but, unbeknownst to me, he'd done his own furnishin', and the pieces was dreadful set and hard to move. Some of 'em I slid out gently and others took some manouverin', but steady work tells on anythin'. He was thinkin' as I wanted him to about most things, though, when he died, and that's sayin' a good deal, for he didn't die until after we'd been married seven years and three months and eighteen days. If he wasn't really thinkin' right, he was pretendin' to, and that's enough to satisfy any reasonable woman.

"Margaret Merriman's pa died when she was at the tender age of ten, and he left all his money to a distant relation in trust for Margaret, the relative bein' supposed to spend the income on her. If Margaret died before she was of age, the relative was to keep it, and if she should marry before she was of age, the relative was to keep it, too. But, livin' to eighteen' and marryin' afterwards, it was all to be Margaret's, and the relative wasn't to have as much as a two-cent stamp with the mucilage licked off.

"This relative was a sweet-faced lady with a large mole on her right cheek. Margaret used to call her 'Moley,' when she was mad at her, which was right frequent. Her name was Magdalene Mather and she'd been married three times. She was dreadful careless with her husbands and had mislaid 'em all. Not bein' able to find 'em again, she just reckoned on their bein' dead and was thinkin' of marryin' some more.

"Seems to me it's a mistake for anybody to marry more'n once. In one of Roger's books it says somethin' about a second marriage bein' the triumph of hope over experience. Magdalene Mather was dreadful hopeful and kept thinkin' that maybe she could get somebody who would stay with her without bein' chained up. Meanwhile it was to her interest to keep little Margaret as young as possible.

"Margaret thought she was ten when she went to live with Magdalene, but she soon learned that it was a mistake and she got to be only seven in less'n half an hour. Magdalene put shorter dresses on her and kept her in white and gave her shoes without any heels, and these little short socks that show a foot or so of bare leg and which is indecent, if fashionable.

"Margaret's birthdays kept gettin' farther and farther apart, and as soon as the neighbours begun to notice that Margaret wasn't agin' like everybody else, why, Magdalene would just pack up and go to a new place.

"She didn't go to school, but had private teachers, because it was in the will that she was to be educated like a real lady. Any teacher who thought Margaret was too far advanced for her age got fired the minute it was spoke of, and pretty soon Margaret got onto it herself. She used to tell teachers she liked to say that she was very backward in her studies, and tell those she didn't like that Aunty Magdalene would be dreadful pleased to hear that she was improvin' in her readin' and 'rithmetic and grammar.

"Meanwhile Nature was workin' in Margaret's interest and she was growin' taller and taller every day. The short socks had to be took off because people laughed so, and Magdalene had to let her braid her hair instead of havin' it cut Dutch and tied with a ribbon. When she was eighteen, she thought she was thirteen, and she was wearin' dresses that come to her shoe tops, and her hair in one braid down her back, and dreadful young hats and no jewels, though her pa had left her a small trunk full of rubies and diamonds and pearls. Magdalene was wearin' the jewels herself. They were movin' around pretty rapid about this time, and goin' from city to city in order to find better teachers for 'the dear child' as Magdalene used to call her.

"One day, soon after they'd gone to a new city, Margaret was goin' down town to take her music lesson. She went alone because Magdalene was laid up with a headache and wanted the house quiet. When the conductor come along for the fare, Margaret was lookin' out of the window, and, absent-minded like, she give him a penny instead of a nickel.

"The conductor give it back to her, and asked her if she was so young she could go for half fare, and Margaret says, right sharp, when she give him the nickel, 'It's not so long since I was travellin' on half-fare.'

"The conductor says: 'I'd hate to have been hangin' up by the thumbs since you was,' says he. Of course this made Margaret good and mad, and she says to the conductor, 'How old do you think I am?'

"The conductor says: 'I ain't paid to think durin' union hours, but I imagine that you ain't old enough to lie about your age.'

"Just then an old woman with a green parrot in a big cage fell off the car while she was gettin' off backwards as usual, and Margaret didn't have no more chance to fight with the conductor. She saw, however, that he was terrible good lookin'—like the dummy in the tailor's window. It says in the story that 'Ronald Macdonald'—that was his name—was as handsome as a young Greek god and, though lowly in station, he would have adorned a title had it been his.'

"Margaret got to doin' some thinkin' about herself, and wonderin' why it was she didn't seem to age none. And whenever she happened to get onto Ronald Macdonald's car, she noticed that he was awful polite and chivalrous to women. He waited patiently when any two of 'em was decidin' who was to pay the fare and findin' their purses, and sayin', 'You must let me pay next time,' and he would tickle a cryin' baby under the chin and make it bill and coo like a bird.

"Did you ever see a baby bill? I never did neither, but that's what it said in the paper. I suppose it has some reference to the expense of their comin' and their keep through the whoopin' cough stage and the measles, and so on. There don't neither of you know nothin' about it 'cause you ain't married, but when Roger come, his pa was obliged to mortgage the house, and the mortgage didn't get took off until Roger was out of dresses and goin' to school and beginnin' to write with ink.

"Let me see—what was I talkin' about? Oh, yes—Ronald Macdonald's fine manners. When a woman give him five pennies instead of a nickel, he was always just as polite to her as he was to anybody, and would help her off the car and carry her bundles to the corner for her, and everything like that. Of course Margaret couldn't help noticin' this and likin' him for it though she was still mad at him for what he said about her age.

"One morning Margaret give him a quarter so's he'd have to make change, and while he was doin' it, she says to him, 'How nice it must be to ride all day without payin' for it.'

"'I'm under age,' says Ronald Macdonald, with a smile that showed all his beautiful teeth and his ruby lips under his black waxed mustache.

"'Get out,' says Margaret, surprised.

"'I am, though,' says Ronald, confidentially. 'I'm just nineteen. How old are you?'

"'Thirteen,' says Margaret, softly.

"'Don't renig,' says Ronald. 'I think we're pretty near of an age.'

"When Margaret got home, she looked up 'renig' in the dictionary, but it wasn't there. She was too smart to ask Magdalene, but she kept on thinkin'.

"One day, while she was goin' down in the car, two men came in and sat by her. They was chance acquaintances, it seemed, havin' just met at the hotel. 'Your face is terrible familiar to me,' one of the men said. 'I've seen you before, or your picture, or something, somewhere. Upon my soul, I believe your picture is hung up in my last wife's boudoir.'

"'Good God,' says the other man, turnin' as pale as death, 'did you marry Magdalene Mather, too?'

"'I did,' says the first man.

"'Then, brother,' says the second man, 'let us get off at the next corner and go and drown our mutual sorrow in drink.'

"After they got off, Margaret went out to Ronald, and she says to him: 'There goes two of my aunt's husbands. She's had three, and there's two of 'em, right there.'

"'Well,' says Ronald, 'if Aunty ain't got a death certificate and two or three divorces put away somewhere, she stands right in line to get canned for a few years for bigamy. You don't look like you had an aunt that was a trigamist,' says he.

"Margaret didn't understand much of this, but she still kept thinkin'. One day while Magdalene was at an afternoon reception, wearin' all of Margaret's jewels, Margaret looked all through her private belongings to see if she could find any divorces, and she come on a family Bible with the date of her birth in it, and her father's will.

"Soon, she understands the whole game, and by doin' a small sum in subtraction, she sees that she is goin' on nineteen now. She's afraid to leave the proofs in the house over night, so she wraps 'em up in a newspaper, and flies with 'em to her only friend Ronald Macdonald, and asks him to keep 'em for her until she comes after 'em. He says he will guard them with his life.

"When Margaret goes back after them, havin' decided to face her aunt and demand her inheritance, Ronald has already read 'em, but of course he don't let on that he has. He convinces her that she ought to get married before she faces her aunt, so that a husband's strong arm will be at hand to defend her through the terrible ordeal.

"Margaret thinks she sees a way out, for she has been studyin' up on law in the meantime, and she remembers how Ronald has told her he is under age, and she knows the marriage won't be legal, but will serve to deceive her aunt.

"So she flies with him and they are married, and then when they confront Magdalene with the will, and the family Bible and their marriage certificate, and tell her she is a trigamist, and they will make trouble for her if she don't do right by 'em, Magdalene sobs out, 'Oh, Heaven, I am lost!' and falls in a dead faint from which she don't come out for six weeks.

"In the meantime, Margaret has thanked Ronald Macdonald for his great kindness, and says he can go now, as the marriage ain't legal, he bein' under age and not havin' his parents' consent. Ronald gives a long, loud laugh and then he digs up his family Bible and shows Margaret how he is almost twenty-five and old enough to be married, and that women have no patent on lyin' about their ages, and that he is not going away.

"Margaret swoons, and when she comes to, she finds that Ronald has resigned his job as a street-car conductor, and has bought some fine clothes on her credit, and is prepared to live happy ever afterward. He bids eternal farewell to work in a long and impassioned speech that's so full of fine language that it would do credit to a minister, and there Margaret is, in a trap of her own makin', with a husband to take care of her money instead of an aunt. Next week, I'll know more about how it turns out, but that's as far as I've got now. Ain't it a perfectly beautiful story?"

Miriam muttered some sort of answer, but Barbara smiled. "It is very interesting," she said, kindly. "I've never read anything like it."

"It's a lot better'n the books you and Roger waste your time over," returned the guest, much gratified; "but I can't lend you the papers, cause there's five waitin' after the postmaster's wife, and goodness knows how many of them has promised others. I don't mind runnin' over once in a while, though, and tellin' you about 'em while I sew.

"It keeps 'em fresh in my memory," she added, happily, "and Roger is so busy with his law books he don't have time to listen to 'em except at supper. He reads law every evening now, and he didn't used to. Guess he ain't wasting so much time as he was. Been down to the hotel yet?" she asked, inclining her head toward Miriam.

"Once," answered Miriam, reluctantly.

"There ain't many come yet," the postmaster's wife tells me. "There's a young lady at the hotel named Miss Eloise Wynne, and every day but Saturday she gets a letter from the city, addressed in a man's writin'. And every afternoon, when the boy brings the hotel mail down to go out on the night train, there's a big white square envelope in a woman's writin' addressed to Doctor Allan Conrad, some place in the city. The envelope smells sweet, but the writin' is dreadful big and sploshy-lookin'. Know anything about her?" Miss Mattie gazed sharply at Miriam over her spectacles.

"No," returned Miriam, decisively.

"Thought maybe you would. Anyhow, you don't need to be so sharp about it, cause there's no harm in askin' a civil question. My mother always taught me that a civil question called for a civil answer. I should think, from the letters and all, that he was her steady company, shouldn't you?"

"It's possible," assented Barbara, seeing that Miriam did not intend to reply.

"There's some talk at the sewin' circle of gettin' you one of them hand sewin' machines," continued Miss Mattie, "so's you could sew more and better."

Barbara flushed painfully. "Thank you," she answered, "but I couldn't use it. I much prefer to do all my work by hand."

"All right," assented Miss Mattie, good-humouredly. "It ain't our idea to force a sewin' machine onto anybody that don't want it. We can use some of the money in gettin' a door-mat for the front door of the church. And, if I was you, I wouldn't let my pa run around so much by himself. If he wants to borrow a dog to go with him, Roger would be willin' to lend him Judge Bascom's Fido. If the Judge wasn't willin', Roger would try to persuade him. Lendin' Fido would make law easier for Roger and be a great help to your pa.

"I must go, now, and get supper. Good-bye. I've enjoyed my visit ever so much. Come over sometime, Miriam—you ain't very sociable. Good-bye."

The two women watched Miss Mattie scudding blithely over the trail which, as she said, Roger had worn in the grass. Miriam looked after her gloomily, but Barbara was laughing.

"Don't look so cross, Aunty," chided Barbara. "No one ever came here who was so easy to entertain."

"Humph," grunted Miriam, and went out.

But even Barbara sighed in relief when she was left alone. She understood some of Roger's difficulties of which he never spoke, and realised that the much-maligned "Bascom liver" could not be held responsible for all his discontent.

She wondered what Roger's father had been like, and did not wonder that he was unhappy, if his nature was in any way akin to his son's. But her mother? How could she have failed to appreciate the beautiful old father whom Barbara loved with all the passion and strength of her young heart!

"He mustn't know," said Barbara to herself, for the hundredth time. "Father must never know."