Gladys and put her on the train with very little formality. Her meeting
Cousin Ann on the way was merely one of those unpleasant coincidences
with which life is filled, although it is hardly possible, usually, for
two such disagreeable persons to be on the same small spot at the same
precise moment.

On the third morning after the Careys' arrival, however, matters assumed
a more hopeful attitude, for Cousin Ann became discontented with Beulah.
The weather had turned cold, and the fireplaces, so long unused, were
uniformly smoky. Cousin Ann's stomach, always delicate, turned from
tinned meats, eggs three times a day, and soda biscuits made by Bill
Harmon's wife; likewise did it turn from nuts, apples, oranges, and
bananas, on which the children thrived; so she went to the so-called
hotel for her meals. Her remarks to the landlady after two dinners and
one supper were of a character not to be endured by any outspoken,
free-born New England woman.

"I keep a hotel, and I'll give you your meals for twenty-five cents
apiece so long as you eat what's set before you and hold your tongue,"
was the irate Mrs. Buck's ultimatum. "I'll feed you," she continued
passionately, "because it's my business to put up and take in anything
that's respectable; but I won't take none o' your sass!"

Well, Cousin Ann's temper was up, too, by this time, and she declined on
her part to take any of the landlady's "sass"; so they parted, rather to
Mrs. Carey's embarrassment, as she did not wish to make enemies at the
outset. That night Cousin Ann, still smarting under the memory of Mrs.
Buck's snapping eyes, high color, and unbridled tongue, complained after
supper that her bedstead rocked whenever she moved, and asked Gilbert if
he could readjust it in some way, so that it should be as stationary as