lumps o' sugar an' no milk." Mrs. Martin knew perfectly what her friend took. "I don't know how this tea is. I got it from the new grocery over at the corner." She tasted it deliberately. "It might 'a' drawed a little more." Slowly she stirred it round and round, and then, as if she had drawn the truth from the depths of her cup, she observed, "This is a queer world, Mis' Smith."
Mrs. Smith sighed a sigh that was appreciative and questioning at once. "It is indeed," she echoed; "I'm always a-sayin' to myself what a mighty cur'us world this is."
"Have you ever got any tea from that new grocery-man?" asked her companion, with tantalising irrelevance.
"No: I hain't never even been in there."
"Well, this here's middlin' good; don't you think so?"
"Oh, it's more than middlin', it's down-right good. I think I must go into that grocery some time, myself."
"I was in there to-day, and met Mis' Murphy: she says there's great goin'-ons up at Miss Prime's—I never shall be able to call her Mis' Hodges."
