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 jab in the back with my umbrella when he came near me, and it sobered him up until they got the casket out of the house. Young Johnny Booth was to have been married yesterday, but he couldn’t be because he’s gone and got the mumps. Wasn’t that like a man?”

“How could he help getting the mumps, poor fellow?”

“I’d poor fellow him, believe me, if I was Kate Sterns. I don’t know how he could help getting the mumps, but I do know the wedding supper was all prepared and everything will be spoiled before he’s well again. Such a waste! He should have had the mumps when he was a boy.”

“Come, come, Cornelia, don’t you think you’re a mite unreasonable?”

Miss Cornelia disdained to reply and turned instead to Susan Baker, a grim-faced, kind-hearted elderly spinster of the Glen, who had been installed as maid-of-all-work at the little house for some weeks. Susan had been up to the Glen to make a sick call, and had just returned.

“How is poor old Aunt Mandy tonight?” asked Miss Cornelia.

Susan sighed.

“Very poorly—very poorly, Cornelia. I am afraid she will soon be in heaven, poor thing!”

“Oh, surely, it’s not so bad as that!” exclaimed Miss Cornelia, sympathetically.