has for two tails. No, I'm a rich woman, but all incomes has their
outside fence. 'F a man 's got a million a year, he can't spend two
million, 'n' I can't start in child raisin' 'n' tombstone father all
in the same year. Father 'll have to wait, 'n' he got so used to it
while he was alive 't he ought not to mind it much now he's dead. But
I give the man my address, 'n' he give me one o' his cards, 'n' when I
go to the Orphan Asylum I may go back 'n' see him, an' maybe if I tell
him about the baby he'll reduce the lion some. The lion is awful
high--strikes me. He's three hunderd dollars, but the man says that 's
because his tail 's out o' the same block. I asked him if he couldn't
take the tail off, but he said 't that would hurt his reputation. He
said 'f I'd go up the ladder to his second floor 'n' look down on the
lion I'd never talk about sawin' off his tail, 'n' he said 't anyhow
cuttin' it off would only make it cost more because it was cut on in
the first place. I saw the sense o' that, 'n' I remembered, too, 't
even 'f folks in the cemetery never can see the tail, father 'll have
to look at it from higher up 'n the ladder to the monument man's shed,
'n' I don't want him to think 't I economized on the tail of his
tombstone. I tell you what, Mrs. Lathrop, I cert'nly do want that
lion, but I can't have it, so I've decided not to think of it again.
The man c'd see I wanted it, 'n' I c'd see 't he really wanted me to
have it. He felt so kind o' sorry for me 't he said he'd do me a
weepin' fox for one hunderd 'n' fifty, if I wanted it, but I didn't
want no fox. Father didn't have nothin' like a fox--his nose was broad
'n' kind o' flat. He hadn't nothin' like a lion, neither, but I'd like
to have the only lion in the cemetery ours."

Mrs. Lathrop nodded her head sympathetically.

Miss Clegg sighed and looked pensive for a moment, but it was soon