"I came by the lower road."

"What did you do that for? It's a good mile further."

"Yes; but it's better riding, that way."

"You'd better go back over the hill. The barn's worth seein', the best one this side of town." Mrs. Richardson rocked to and fro in exultation at having some one to listen to her month's acc.u.mulation of gossip.

Bannock Bars was an isolated hamlet, and visitors were few. "Sol's girl, Fannie, has gone to Oswego for a week. She's had scarlet fever, and it left her ailin'. It's too bad, for she is a likely girl."

"Very likely," Phebe a.s.sented, half under her breath.

"What?"

"I said it was extremely probable."

"What was?" Mrs. Richardson glared at her guest who was tranquilly waving a palm-leaf fan.

"That Fannie is a good girl."

"Well, she is," Mrs. Richardson returned shortly.

There was a silence, while Phebe inspected the black cambric binding of her fan, and tried to gather energy to go out into the hot sun once more.

Mrs. Richardson had rocked herself into more placid humor.

"They've got a boarder over to Sykes's," she resumed.

"Have they?" Phebe spoke indifferently. Bannock Bars was too near town for her to realize how countrified it was, how the coming of a single stranger could stir the placid current of its existence.

"He's from New York, Bartlett is his name, or some such thing. They say he's a music feller."

"A what?" Phebe wondered whether Mrs. Richardson had reference to a member of a German band. The words suggested something of the kind.

"A feller that writes music. I don't know anything about it only what they say. Anyhow, he's brought a pianner with him, and they say he bangs away on it like all possessed, and then stops short and scolds. I went past there, one day, when the windows was open, and I heard him thumpin'

and tiddlin' away for dear life. It didn't seem to me there was much tune to it, nor time neither; you couldn't so much as tell where one line left off and the next begun."

Phebe's fan slid out of her lap, and, as she stooped to pick it up, she dropped her handkerchief.

"Have you seen him?" she asked, when she was upright once more.

"How?"

"Have you ever seen this Mr. Bartlett?"

"Yes. He goes round in one of these short-pant suits and great coa.r.s.e 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, a.s.sailed 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?"

"To be a doctor, I suppose." Phebe rose and put on her hat.

Mrs. Richardson took a step towards her.

"You don't want a skeleton; do you?" she asked. "I've got one I'd sell cheap."

For one instant, Phebe hesitated. Unexpected as was the offer, it appealed to her. There was a certain dignity in having one's own skeleton; it was the first step toward professional life. That one instant's hesitation settled the matter, for Mrs. Richardson saw it and was swift to take advantage of it.

"It belonged to His sister's husband," she said, with a jerk of her head toward the portrait of her late husband. "He was a doctor and, when he died, all his trumpery was brought here and stowed away in our garret.

It's as good as new, and you can have it for five dollars."

"I--don't--know," Phebe said slowly.

Mrs. Richardson interposed.

"I don't want to be hard on you. 'Tain't a very big one, and it ain't strung up," she said persuasively. "You can have it for three. It's a splendid chance for you."

Phebe yielded.

"Well, I'll take it, if it is all there."

"I'll get it, and you can let your father count it up. I'm willing to leave it to him." And Mrs. Richardson went hurrying out of the room.

She was gone for some time. When she came back again she bore in her arms a bundle, large, k.n.o.bby and misshapen. It was wrapped in newspapers which had cracked away here and there over the end of a rib; but it was enclosed in a network of strings that crossed and crisscrossed like a hammock.

"I thought you might just as well take it right along with you," she said. "You can send me the money in a letter, if it's all right, but land knows when you will be here again, and I hain't got anybody to send it by."

Phebe looked appalled. In a long experience of bicycling, she had scorned a carrier, and she stood firmly opposed to the idea of converting her wheel into a luggage van.

"I can't carry that," she said.

"Yes, you can. Just string it over your forepiece and it will go all right. It ain't heavy for anything so bulky. I'll help you tie it on."

And she prepared to execute her offer.

"Oh, don't! At least, I'm much obliged; but--Oh, dear, if I must take it, I suppose I must; but I think I'd better tie it on, myself."