"Was you speakin' to me, Rose Ellen?" said Mrs. Mellen.
"Why, yes!" said the girl, in distress.
"Why, mother, how did you get this cold? you seemed all right when I went out."
"Gettin' old!" cried Mrs. Mellen. "'Tis nothin' of the sort, Rose Ellen! I've took a cold, I shouldn't wonder. I went out without my shawl just for a minute. I expect 'twas careless, but there! life is too short to be thinkin' all the time about the flesh, 'specially when there's as much of it as I have. I've ben expectin' I should grow hard of hearin', though, these two years past. The Bowlers do, you know, Rose Ellen, 'long about middle life. There was your Uncle Lihu. I can hear him snort now, sittin' in his chair, like a pig for all the world, and with no idea he was makin' a sound."
"But it's come on so sudden!" cried Rose Ellen, in distress.
"That's Bowler!" said her mother. "Bowler for all the world! They take things suddin, whether it's hoarsin' up, or breakin' out, or what it is. There! you've heard me tell how my Aunt Phœbe 'Lizabeth come out with spots all over her face, when she was standin' up to be married. Chicken-pox it was, and they never knew where she got it; but my grand'ther said 'twas pure Bowler, wherever it come from."
She gazed placidly at her daughter's troubled face; then, patting her with her broad hand, pushed her gently out of the room before her.
"Mr. Lindsay's heard enough of my bein' hard of hearin', I expect," she said, cheerfully, as they passed into the kitchen.
"Don't you fret, Rose Ellen! You won't have to get a fog-horn yet awhile. I don't know but it would be a good plan for you to mix up a mess o' biscuit, if you felt to: Mr. Lindsay likes your biscuit real well, I heard him say so."
"That's what I was going to do," said Rose Ellen, still depressed. "I wish't you'd see the doctor, mother. I don't believe but he could help your hearing, if you take it before it's got settled on you."