but made out of good velvet. Beneath the bonnet (which was large)
appeared a little, round, agitated old face, with bobbing
white curls and white teeth set a little apart in the mouth,
a defect that brought a kind of palpitating frankness
into the expression.

"Now, who HAS mother picked up now?" thought Tilly. "Well, praise be,
she hasn't a baby, anyhow!"

She could hear the talk between the two; for the old woman being deaf,
Mrs. Louder elevated her voice, and the old woman, herself, spoke in
a high, thin pipe that somehow reminded Tilly of a lost lamb.

"That's just so," said Mrs. Louder, "a body cayn't help worrying
over a sick child, especially if they're away from you."

"Solon and Minnie wouldn't tell me," bleated the other woman,
"they knew I'd worry. Kinder hurt me they should keep things from me;
but they hate to have me upset. They are awful good children.
But I suspicioned something when Alonzo kept writing.
Minnie, she wouldn't tell me, but I pinned her down and it
come out, Eliza had the grip bad. And, then, nothing would
do but I must go to her--why, Mrs. Louder, she's my child!
But they wouldn't hark to it. 'Fraid to have me travel alone ----"

"I guess they take awful good care of you," said Mrs. Louder;
and she sighed.

"Yes, ma'am, awful." She, too, sighed.