the funeral. They must have gotten word in some irregular manner, and
the woman held her blue-bonneted head with a cant of war, which Ann
knew well of old.

For a little while there was silence, except for Paulina Maria's
heavy tramp and the soft shuffle of Belinda Lamb's cloth shoes out in
the kitchen. They were hurrying to get the supper in readiness.
Another appetizing odor was now stealing over the house, the odor of
baking cream-of-tartar biscuits.

Suddenly, with one accord, as if actuated by one mental impulse, the
little woman, the large man, and the three girls arose and advanced
upon Ann Edwards. She grasped the arm of her chair hard, as if
bracing herself to meet a shock.

The little woman spoke. Her eyes seemed full of black sparks, her
voice shook, red spots flamed out in her cheeks. "We'll bid you
good-bye now, Cousin Ann," said she.

"Ain't you going to stay and have some supper?" asked Ann. Her manner
was at once defiant and conciliatory.

Then the little woman made her speech. All the way from her distant
village, in the rear gloom of the covered wagon, she had been
composing it. She delivered it with an assumption of calm dignity, in
spite of her angry red cheeks and her shaking voice. "Cousin Ann,"
said the little woman, "me and mine go nowhere where we are not
invited. We came to the funeral--though you didn't see fit to even
tell us when it was, and we only heard of it by accident from the
butcher--out of respect to poor Abel. He was my own second-cousin,