152 TROTTYS WEDDING TOUR.

“ Very well,” said Cousin Mudge. “Very well. Now, my
dear, you just make your head-quarters at my house as long
as you can, to save board, and silver-plate this town, —if you
don’t mind going where you ’re known?”

“ Nota bit!” said perverse Beeb. “ I rather enjoy it now.”

“ Then, when you ’ve used up this place, strike out by cars
here and there, you see, and come back at night.”

“Or board in a respectable dressmaker’s family, for in-
stance —‘ cheap,’”’ suggested Beeb, whose business invention
sharpened with her success.

“ Four weeks,” said Cousin Mudge, reflectively, “‘ I should
think, would be all you need.”

What were four weeks of silver-agency to a year with a
baby? Beeb’s eyes snapped and shone, and Beeh’s heart
and head swam in a blur of silver-plate.

It was, I believe, just four weeks thereafter that Mrs.
Burden, dejectedly walking the room with the baby, opened
the last letter of the business correspondence with which this
story is concerned.

East Hampton, Tuesday.

“Dear Moruer, — You see there are more ways than one to help
you. I enclose one hundred and four dollars. It would have taken
longer if I had had more board to pay. Cousin Mudge has been very
good. I wrote to Sue Crowe a week ago, and engaged her to come
to-night. You may expect her confidently. I shall stay a day or
two longer to rest, at Polly Higgins’s, and then you may expect

to see
“Your affectionate silver-agent and lady of leisure,

“ BEEB.”