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 sends me up in the mountains in one of her cars. She gets back East two or three times a year to make personal appearances, but she don't take me very often.

The old woman sighed and then jumped.

What was that? she cried. I thought I felt a shock.

Shock? Ambrose repeated in alarm.

Yes, an earthquake. I guess not. It seems all right now.

Do you have earthquakes here?

Mercy, yes. Sometimes a couple in one day. They usually last about three minutes and I feel sick I can tell you. Sometimes the birds in the cages get knocked off their perch. . . . She sighed again. . . . Mr. Deacon, I can tell you that ain't the only kind of quakes we have, nor the worst. . . . She turned to him and spoke in a heavy, portentous tone. . . . Mr. Deacon, I'm glad you've come.

Ambrose felt his composure oozing away, but he replied with a kind of hollow heartiness, I'm glad too this morning.

You don't know, she went on, now in a mysterious whisper, what this house is like!

His composure was gone for the day.

She shook a pudgy finger at him as she continued,