"Your plants are really wonderful, Mrs. Glynn," said Mrs. Bates,
"but I don't see how you manage to get a glimpse of anything
outside the house, your windows are so full of them."

"Maybe she can see and not be seen," said Abby Simson, who had a
quick wit and a ready tongue.

Mrs. Joseph Glynn flushed a little. "I have not the slightest
curiosity about my neighbors," she said, "but it is impossible to
live just across the road from any house without knowing
something of what is going on, whether one looks or not," said
she, with dignity.

"Ma and I never look out of the windows from curiosity," said
Ethel Glynn, with spirit. Ethel Glynn had a great deal of
spirit, which was evinced in her personal appearance as well as
her tongue. She had an eye to the fashions; her sleeves were
never out of date, nor was the arrangement of her hair.

"For instance," said Ethel, "we never look at the house opposite
because we are at all prying, but we do know that that old maid
has been doing a mighty queer thing lately."

"First thing you know you will be an old maid yourself, and then
your stones will break your own glass house," said Abby Simson.

"Oh, I don't care," retorted Ethel. "Nowadays an old maid isn't
an old maid except from choice, and everybody knows it. But it
must have been different in Miss Eudora's time. Why, she is older
than you are, Miss Abby."