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  enthusiasm of the two women and scrubbed the kitchen floor faithfully every morning in order to remove the stains of years of neglect.

“You would n’t think your old hen ’d be such a fool, Miss Dalton,” she said; “but I kind o’ surmised the reason she’s been missin’, an’ I found her to-day in a corner o’ the haymow sittin’ on five eggs. Now, wouldn’t you s’pose at her age she’d know better than to try an’ raise chickens in October?”

“I’m afraid they’ll die if it should be a cold fall, with nobody to look after ’em; but maybe I can take ’em home to my shed an’ lend Mr. Kimball another hen.” (Amanda’s tone was motherly.) “I never like to break up a hen’s nest, somehow; it seems as if they must have feelin’s like other folks.”

“I’d take her off quicker’n scat, an’ keep takin’ her off, till she got some sense,” said Abby, with the Chinese cruelty of sixteen.

“Well, you let her be till Mr. Kimball gets well enough to ask; an’ I think, Abby, you