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Mrs. Bridges turned so sharply she dropped the turkey-wing with which she was polishing the stove.

“You don’t never mean it,” she gasped.

“Yes, I do. I know we’d both feel better to take her in than to take in an organ”—they both laughed rather foolishly at the poor joke. “You can furnish the room real comf’table with what it ’u’d take to buy an organ; an’ we can get the horse an’ buggy, too.”

“Oh, Isaphene, I’ve never meant but what you should have an organ. I know you’d learn fast. You’d soon get so’s you could play ‘Lilly Dale’ an’ ‘Hazel Dell;’ an’ you might get so’s you could play ‘General Persifer F. Smith’s Grand March.’ No, I won’t never spend that money for nothin’ but an organ—so you can just shet up about it.”

“I want a horse an’ buggy worse, maw,” said Isaphene, after a brief but fierce struggle with the dearest desire of her heart. “We can get a horse that I can ride, too. An’ we’ll get a phaeton, so’s we can take Mis’ Lane to church an’ around.” Then she added, with a regular masterpiece of diplomacy—“We’ll show the neighbors that when we do take people in, we take ’em in all over!”