"The new folks is movin' in next door," she volunteered: "they must have been doin' a lot of repairs. The painters an' paper hangers has just got their ladders an' things moved out, an' the carpets is bein' nailed down now: they've kep' the racket up since sivin o'clock this mornin'. Sure now, I do be missin' Mrs. Casey more an' more ivery day,--a-comin' in an' out wit' a pail, or the coal hod, or the potatay peelin's, an' always stoppin' to spake neighbourly like, over the fince. It's hard to see new folks movin' in."
"What manner of people are they?" inquired Marie Jean, leaning languidly back in her chair.
"Oh, they seem good enough folks," returned Mrs. Hennesy, "but they'll niver be what Mrs. Casey was,--that frindly an' obligin' she was that she'd lind the head off her shoulders. The man looks like wan of thim Protestant praists,--an' the woman's young lookin', all but her white hair. There's two girls about yer age, Mary Jane, an' a boy, besides a hired girl. They've got good furniture,--nothin' so good as our plush parlour set, though,--an' I don't much care for the colour of their carpets. Still, I guess they'll be good neighbours enough."
Marie Jean pushed back her breakfast and stepped over to the window. The scene that met her eyes was an animated one. Workmen were lifting furniture and household goods out of a heavy moving van and hurrying them into the house. A tall gentlemen in a silk hat was beating a rug in the back yard. A stout-armed maid was suspended out of an upper story window with pail, brushes and fluttering rags, engaged in cleaning the glass. A tall broad-shouldered youth in a baggy pair of overalls was digging out the rotten fenceposts: and last of all, a girl in a gingham dress, a girl with flushed face and wavy hair tucked up under an old hat, was energetically raking the yard and gathering the dirt into little piles.
"Mercy!" exclaimed Marie Jean Hennesy. Then she added haughtily, "I shall not call upon them."
"Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbour's creed hath lent."
IT was Saturday morning and a great hammering was going on in the Hennesy yard. Whenever the hammering ceased for a moment, a boyish whistle took its place. It was a cheerful whistle and an infectious one. The minister in his study was working up his sermon for Sunday morning. It was called "The Simple Life," but it was growing all too complex and knotty, and the minister leaned back in his chair with relaxed muscles and contemplated his work with a troubled air. The whistle burst into song and floated in through the window with the sunshine: