"Have you ever seen this Mr. Bartlett?"
"Yes. He goes round in one of these short-pant suits and great coarse stockin's and shoes, and he never acts as if he knew what he was about. Half-baked, I call him. He holds his head like this, and he struts along as if Bannock Bars wa'n't half good enough for him. Mis' Sykes says he ain't a mite fussy, though, takes what she gives him and don't complain. Land! If he can stand Eulaly Sykes's cookin', he must be tough."
"Perhaps he will keel over, some day," Phebe suggested.
"I should think he would. But then, they say folks like him eat all sorts of things at night suppers, so I suppose he is used to it." She rocked in silence, for a moment; then she went on, "What do you find to do with yourself, now you're home again? You was with Mis' Farrington's folks; wasn't you, she that was Theodora McAlister?"
"Yes."
"She does a good deal of writin', I hear. Does she get much out of it?"
Phebe hesitated, assailed by doubts as to how large a story Mrs.
Richardson would swallow, and her hostess swept on,—
"She's spreadin' herself a good deal, and it can't all be her earnin's.
Do you take after her?"
"No; I am studying medicine."
"I want to know! What for?"