like an old maid. Don't do it--it's foolish, and you will get the lone
notion really fastened in your mind and let some man find out that is
how you feel. Then it will be all over with you. I have only one regret;
and it is that if I ever should be a widow Mr. Johnson wouldn't be here
to see how quickly I turned into an old maid." Mrs. Johnson sews by
assassinating the cloth with the needle, and as she talked she was
mending the sleeve of Mr. Johnson's lounge coat.

"I think an old maid is just a woman who has never been in love with a
man who loves her. Lots of them have been married for years," I said,
just as innocently as the soft face of a pan of cream, and went on
darning one of Billy's socks.

"Well, be that as it may, they are the blessed members of the women
tribe," she answered, looking at me sharply. "Now I have often told Mr.
Johnson--" but here we were interrupted in what might have been the
rehearsal of a glorious scrap by the appearance of Aunt Bettie Pollard,
and with her came a long, tall, lovely vision of a woman in the most
wonderful close clingy dress and hat that you wanted to eat the minute
you saw it. I hated her instantly with the most intense adoration that
made me want to lie down at her feet, and also made me feel as though
I had gained all the more than twenty pounds that I have slaved off me
and doubled them on again. I would have liked to lead her that minute
into Dr. John's office and just to have looked at him and said one
word--"Scarlet-runner!" Aunt Betty introduced her as Miss Clinton from
London.

"Oh, my dear Mrs. Carter, how glad I am to meet you!" she said as she
towered over me in a willowy way, and her voice was lovely and cool
almost to slimness. "I am the bearer of so many gracious messages that