"As like as not he wouldn't have took a notion with his tail, Lois, if I'd been driving him alone," hazarded Mrs. Daggett mildly. "Dolly's an awful knowing horse.... Git-ap, Dolly!"

"Do you mean to tell me, Abby Daggett, that there horse of Henry's has took a spite against me?" demanded the spinster.... "Mebbe he's a mind-reader," she added darkly.

"You know I didn't mean nothin' like that, Lois," her sister-in-law assured her pacifically. "What I meant to say was: I got so interested in what you were saying, Lois, that I handled the reins careless, and he took advantage.... Git-ap, Dolly! Don't you see, Lois, even a horse knows the difference when two ladies is talking."

"You'd ought to learn to say exactly what you mean, Abby," commented Miss Daggett.

She glanced suspiciously at the fresh striped muslin, which was further enhanced by a wide crocheted collar and a light blue satin bow.

"Where'd you say you were goin' this afternoon, Abby?"

"I said out in the country a piece, Lois; it's such a nice afternoon."

"Well, I should think Henry'd be needing the horse for his business. I know I'd never think of asking him for it—and me a blood relation, too, trying to earn my bread and butter tramping around the country with Famous People."

Mrs. Daggett, thus convicted of heartless selfishness, sighed vaguely. Henry's sister always made her feel vastly uncomfortable, even sinful.

"You know, Lois, we'd be real glad to have you come and live with us constant," she said heroically.... "Git-ap, Dolly!"

Miss Daggett compressed her thin lips.

"No; I'm too independent for that, Abby, an' you know it. If poor Henry was to be left a widower, I might consider living in his house and doing for him; but you know, Abby, there's very few houses big enough for two women.... And that r'minds me; did you know Miss Orr has got a hired girl?"

"Has she?" inquired Mrs. Daggett, welcoming the change of subject with cordial interest. "A hired girl! ...Git-ap, Dolly!"

"Yes," confirmed Miss Daggett. "Lute Parsons was telling me she came in on th' noon train yesterday. She brought a trunk with her, and her check was from Boston."

"Well, I want to know!" murmured Mrs. Daggett. "Boston's where she came from, ain't it? It'll be real pleasant for her to have somebody from Boston right in the house.... G'long, Dolly!"

"I don't know why you should be so sure of that, Abby," sniffed Miss Daggett. "I should think a person from right here in Brookville would be more company. How can a hired girl from Boston view the passin' and tell her who's goin' by? I think it's a ridiculous idea, myself."

"I shouldn't wonder if it's somebody she knows," surmised Mrs. Daggett. "'Twould be real pleasant for her to have a hired girl that's mebbe worked for her folks."

"I intend to ask her, if she comes to the door," stated Lois Daggett. "You can drop me right at the gate; and if you ain't going too far with your buggy-riding, Abby, you might stop and take me up a spell later. It's pretty warm to walk far today."

"Well, I was thinkin' mebbe I'd stop in there, too, Lois," said Mrs. Daggett apologetically. "I ain't been to see Miss Orr for quite a spell, and—"

The spinster turned and fixed a scornfully, intelligent gaze upon the mild, rosy countenance of her sister-in-law.

"Oh, I see!" she sniffed. "That was where you was pointing for, all the while! And you didn't let on to me, oh, no!"

"Now, Lois, don't you get excited," exhorted Mrs. Daggett. "It was just about the wall papers. Henry, he says to me this mornin'—... Git-ap, Dolly!"

"'Henry says—Henry says'! Yes; I guess so! What do you know about wall papers, Abby? ...Well, all I got to say is: I don't want nobody looking on an' interfering when I'm trying to sell 'Lives of Famous People.' Folks, es a rule, ain't so interested in anything they got to pay out money fer, an' I want a clear field."

"I won't say a word till you're all through talkin', Lois," promised Mrs. Daggett meekly. "Mebbe she'd kind of hate to say 'no' before me. She's took a real liking to Henry.... Git-ap, Dolly.... And anyway, she's awful generous. I could say, kind of careless; 'If I was you, I'd take a leather-bound.' Couldn't I, Lois?"

"Well, you can come in, Abby, if you're so terrible anxious," relented Miss Daggett. "You might tell her, you and Henry was going to take a leather-bound; that might have some effect. I remember once I sold three Famous People in a row in one street. There couldn't one o' them women endure to think of her next door neighbor having something she didn't have."

"That's so, Lois," beamed Mrs. Daggett. "The most of folks is about like that. Why, I rec'lect once, Henry brought me up a red-handled broom from th' store. My! it wa'n't no time b'fore he was cleaned right out of red-handled brooms. Nobody wanted 'em natural color, striped, or blue. Henry, he says to me, 'What did you do to advertise them red-handled brooms, Abby?' 'Why, papa,' says I, 'I swept off my stoop and the front walk a couple of times, that's all.' 'Well,' he says, 'broom-handles is as catching as measles, if you only get 'em th' right color!' ... Git-ap, Dolly!"

"Well, did you ever!" breathed Miss Daggett excitedly, leaning out of the buggy to gaze upon the scene of activity displayed on the further side of the freshly-pruned hedge which divided Miss Lydia Orr's property from the road: "Painters and carpenters and masons, all going at once! And ain't that Jim Dodge out there in the side yard talking to her? 'Tis, as sure as I'm alive! I wonder what he's doing? Go right in, Abby!"

"I kind of hate to drive Dolly in on that fresh gravel," hesitated Mrs. Daggett. "He's so heavy on his feet he'll muss it all up. Mebbe I'd better hitch out in front."

"She sees us, Abby; go on in!" commanded Miss Daggett masterfully. "I guess when it comes to that, her gravel ain't any better than other folks' gravel."

Thus urged, Mrs. Daggett guided the sulky brown horse between the big stone gateposts and brought him to a standstill under the somewhat pretentious porte-cochere of the Bolton house.

Lydia Orr was beside the vehicle in a moment, her face bright with welcoming smiles.

"Dear Mrs. Daggett," she said, "I'm so glad you've come. I've been wanting to see you all day. I'm sure you can tell me—"

"You've met my husband's sister, Miss Lois Daggett, haven't you, Miss Orr? She's the lady that made that beautiful drawn-in mat you bought at the fair."

Miss Orr shook hands cordially with the author of the drawn-in mat.

"Come right in," she said. "You'll want to see what we're doing inside, though nothing is finished yet."

She led the way to a small room off the library, its long French windows opening on a balcony.

"This room used to be a kind of a den, they tell me; so I've made it into one, the first thing, you see."

There was a rug on the floor, a chair or two and a high mahogany desk which gave the place a semblance of comfort amid the general confusion. Miss Lois Daggett gazed about with argus-eyed curiosity.

"I don't know as I was ever in this room, when Andrew Bolton lived here," she observed, "but it looks real homelike now."

"Poor man! I often think of him," said kindly Mrs. Daggett. "'Twould be turrible to be shut away from the sunshine f'r even one year; but poor Andrew Bolton's been closed up in State's prison fer—l' me see, it mus' be goin' on—"

"It's fifteen years, come fall, since he got his sentence," stated the spinster. "His time must be 'most up."

Lydia Orr had seated herself in an old-fashioned chair, its tall carved back turned to the open windows.

"Did you—lose much in the bank failure, Miss Daggett?" she inquired, after a slight pause, during which the promoter of Famous People was loosening the strings of her black silk bag.

"About two hundred dollars I'd saved up," replied Miss Daggett. "By now it would be a lot more—with the interest."

"Yes, of course," assented their hostess; "one should always think of interest in connection with savings."

She appeared to be gazing rather attentively at the leather-bound prospectus Miss Daggett had withdrawn from her bag.

"That looks like something interesting, Miss Daggett," she volunteered.

"This volume I'm holdin' in my hand," began that lady, professionally, "is one of the most remarkable works ever issued by the press of any country. It is the life history of one thousand men and women of world-wide fame and reputation, in letters, art, science an' public life. No library nor parlor table is complete without this authoritative work of general information an' reference. It is a com-plete library in itself, and—"

"What is the price of the work, Miss Daggett?" inquired Lydia Orr.

"Just hold on a minute; I'm coming to that," said Miss Daggett firmly. "As I was telling you, this work is a complete library in itself. A careful perusal of the specimen pages will convince the most skeptical. Turning to page four hundred and fifty-six, we read:—"



"I'm sure I should like to buy the book, Miss Daggett."

"You ain't th' only one," said the agent. "Any person of even the most ordinary intelligence ought to own this work. Turning to page four hundred and fifty-six, we read: 'Snipeley, Samuel Bangs: lawyer ligislator an' author; born eighteen hundred fifty-nine, in the town of—'"

At this moment the door was pushed noiselessly open, and a tall, spare woman of middle age stood upon the threshold bearing a tray in her hands. On the tray were set forth silver tea things, flanked by thin bread and butter and a generous pile of sponge cake.

"You must be tired and thirsty after your drive," said Lydia Orr hospitably. "You may set the tray here, Martha."

The maid complied.

"Of course I must have that book, Miss Daggett," their hostess went on. "You didn't mention the title, nor the price. Won't you have a cup of tea, Mrs. Daggett?"

"That cup of tea looks real nice; but I'm afraid you've gone to a lot of trouble and put yourself out," protested Mrs. Daggett, who had not ventured to open her lips until then. What wonderful long words Lois had used; and how convincing had been her manner. Mrs. Daggett had resolved that "Lives of Famous People," in its best red leather binding, should adorn her own parlor table in the near future, if she could persuade Henry to consent.

"I think that book Lois is canvassing for is just lovely," she added artfully, as she helped herself to cake. "I'm awful anxious to own one; just think, I'd never even heard of Snipeley Samuel Bangs—"

Lois Daggett crowed with laughter.

"Fer pity sake, Abby! don't you know no better than that? It's Samuel Bangs Snipeley; he was County Judge, the author of 'Platform Pearls,' and was returned to legislature four times by his constituents, besides being—"

"Could you spare me five copies of the book, Miss Daggett?" inquired Lydia, handing her the sponge cake.

"Five copies!"

Miss Daggett swiftly controlled her agitation.

"I haven't told you the price, yet. You'd want one of them leather-bound, wouldn't you? They come high, but they wear real well, and I will say there's nothing handsomer for a parlor table."

"I want them all leather-bound," said Lydia, smiling. "I want one for myself, one for a library and the other three—"

"There's nothing neater for a Christmas or birthday present!" shrilled Lois Daggett joyously. "And so informing."

She swallowed her tea in short, swift gulps; her faded eyes shone. Inwardly she was striving to compute the agent's profit on five leather-bound copies of Famous People. She almost said aloud "I can have a new dress!"

"We've been thinking," Lydia Orr said composedly, "that it might be pleasant to open a library and reading room in the village. What do you think of the idea, Miss Daggett? You seem interested in books, and I thought possibly you might like to take charge of the work."

"Who, me?— Take charge of a library?"

Lois Daggett's eyes became on the instant watchful and suspicious. Lydia Orr had encountered that look before, on the faces of men and even of boys. Everybody was afraid of being cheated, she thought. Was this just in Brookville, and because of the misdeeds of one man, so long ago?

"Of course we shall have to talk it over some other day, when we have more time," she said gently.

"Wouldn't that be nice!" said Mrs. Daggett. "I was in a library once, over to Grenoble. Even school children were coming in constant to get books. But I never thought we could have one in Brookville. Where could we have it, my dear?"

"Yes; that's the trouble," chimed in Lois. "There isn't any place fit for anything like that in our town."

Lydia glanced appealingly from one to the other of the two faces. One might have thought her irresolute—or even afraid of their verdict.

"I had thought," she said slowly, "of buying the old Bolton bank building. It has not been used for anything, Judge Fulsom says, since—"

"No; it ain't," acquiesced Mrs. Daggett soberly, "not since—"

She fell silent, thinking of the dreadful winter after the bank failure, when scarlet fever raged among the impoverished homes.

"There's been some talk, off and on, of opening a store there," chimed in Lois Daggett, setting down her cup with a clash; "but I guess nobody'd patronize it. Folks don't forget so easy."

"But it's a good substantial building," Lydia went on, her eyes resting on Mrs. Daggett's broad, rosy face, which still wore that unwonted look of pain and sadness. "It seems a pity not to change the—the associations. The library and reading room could be on the first floor; and on the second, perhaps, a town hall, where—"

"For the land sake!" ejaculated Lois Daggett; "you cer'nly have got an imagination, Miss Orr. I haven't heard that town hall idea spoken of since Andrew Bolton's time. He was always talking about town improvements; wanted a town hall and courses of lectures, and a fountain playing in a park and a fire-engine, and the land knows what. He was a great hand to talk, Andrew Bolton was. And you see how he turned out!"

"And mebbe he'd have done all those nice things for Brookville, Lois, if his speculations had turned out different," said Mrs. Daggett, charitably. "I always thought Andrew Bolton meant all right. Of course he had to invest our savings; banks always do, Henry says."

"I don't know anything about investing, and don't want to, either—not the kind he did, anyhow," retorted Lois Daggett.

She arose as she spoke, brushing the crumbs of sponge cake from her skirt.

"I got to get that order right in," she said: "five copies—or was it six, you said?"

"I think I could use six," murmured Lydia.

"And all leather-bound! Well, now, I know you won't ever be sorry. It's one of those works any intelligent person would be proud to own."

"I'm sure it is," said the girl gently.

She turned to Mrs. Daggett.

"Can't you stay awhile longer? I—I should like—"

"Oh, I guess Abby'd better come right along with me," put in Lois briskly ... "and that reminds me, do you want to pay something down on that order? As a general thing, where I take a big order—"

"Of course—I'd forgotten; I always prefer to pay in advance."

The girl opened the tall desk and producing a roll of bills told off the price of her order into Miss Daggett's hand.

"I should think you'd be almost afraid to keep so much ready money by you, with all those men workin' outside," she commented.

"They're all Brookville men," said Lydia. "I have to have money to pay them with. Besides, I have Martha."

"You mean your hired girl, I suppose," inferred Miss Daggett, rubbing her nose thoughtfully.

"She isn't exactly—a servant," hesitated Lydia. "We give the men their noon meal," she added. "Martha helps me with that."

"You give them their dinner! Well, I never! Did you hear that, Abby? She gives them their dinner. Didn't you know men-folks generally bring their noonings in a pail? Land! I don't know how you get hearty victuals enough for all those men. Where do they eat?"

"In the new barn," said Lydia, smiling. "We have a cook stove out there."

"Ain't that just lovely!" beamed Mrs. Daggett, squeezing the girl's slim hand in both her own. "Most folks wouldn't go to the trouble of doing anything so nice. No wonder they're hustling."

"Mebbe they won't hustle so fast toward the end of the job," said Lois Daggett. "You'll find men-folks are always ready to take advantage of any kind of foolishness. Come, Abby; we must be going. You'll get those books in about two weeks, Miss Orr. A big order takes more time, I always tell people."

"Thank you, Miss Daggett. But wouldn't you—if you are in a hurry, you know; Mr. Dodge is going to the village in the automobile; we're expecting some supplies for the house. He'll be glad to take you."

"Who, Jim Dodge? You don't mean to tell me Jim Dodge can drive an auto! I never stepped foot inside of one of those contraptions. But I don't know but I might's well die for a sheep as a lamb."

Lois Daggett followed the girl from the room in a flutter of joyous excitement.

"You can come home when you get ready, Abby," she said over her shoulder. "But you want to be careful driving that horse of yours; he might cut up something scandalous if he was to meet an auto."



Chapter X

Mrs. Daggett was sitting by the window gazing dreamily out, when Lydia returned after witnessing the triumphant departure of the promoter of Famous People.

"It kind of brings it all back to me," said Mrs. Daggett, furtively wiping her eyes. "It's going t' look pretty near's it used to. Only I remember Mis' Bolton used to have a flower garden all along that stone wall over there; she was awful fond of flowers. I remember I gave her some roots of pinies and iris out of our yard, and she gave me a new kind of lilac bush—pink, it is, and sweet! My! you can smell it a mile off when it's in blow."

"Then you knew—the Bolton family?"

The girl's blue eyes widened wistfully as she asked the question.

"Yes, indeed, my dear. And I want to tell you—just betwixt ourselves—that Andrew Bolton was a real nice man; and don't you let folks set you t' thinking he wa'n't. Now that you're going to live right here in this house, my dear, seems to me it would be a lot pleasanter to know that those who were here before you were just good, kind folks that had made a mistake. I was saying to Henry this morning: 'I'm going to tell her some of the nice things folks has seemed to forget about the Boltons. It won't do any harm,' I said. 'And it'll be cheerfuller for her.' Now this room we're sitting in—I remember lots of pleasant things about this room. 'Twas here—right at that desk—he gave us a check to fix up the church. He was always doing things like that. But folks don't seem to remember."

"Thank you so much, dear Mrs. Daggett, for telling me," murmured Lydia. "Indeed it will be—cheerfuller for me to know that Andrew Bolton wasn't always—a thief. I've sometimes imagined him walking about these rooms.... One can't help it, you know, in an old house like this."

Mrs. Daggett nodded eagerly. Here was one to whom she might impart some of the secret thoughts and imaginings which even Maria Dodge would have called "outlandish":

"I know," she said. "Sometimes I've wondered if—if mebbe folks don't leave something or other after them—something you can't see nor touch; but you can sense it, just as plain, in your mind. But land! I don't know as I'd ought to mention it; of course you know I don't mean ghosts and like that."

"You mean their—their thoughts, perhaps," hesitated Lydia. "I can't put it into words; but I know what you mean."

Mrs. Daggett patted the girl's hand kindly.

"I've come to talk to you about the wall papers, dearie; Henry thought mebbe you'd like to see me, seeing I don't forget so easy's some. This room was done in a real pretty striped paper in two shades of buff. There's a little of it left behind that door. Mrs. Bolton was a great hand to want things cheerful. She said it looked kind of sunshiny, even on a dark day. Poor dear, it fell harder on her than on anybody else when the crash came. She died the same week they took him to prison; and fer one, I was glad of it."

Mrs. Daggett wiped her kind eyes.

"Mebbe you'll think it's a terrible thing for me to say," she added hastily. "But she was such a delicate, soft-hearted sort of a woman: I couldn't help feelin' th' Lord spared her a deal of bitter sorrow by taking her away. My! It does bring it all back to me so—the house and the yard, and all. We'd all got used to seeing it a ruin; and now— Whatever put it in your head, dearie, to want things put back just as they were? Papa was telling me this morning you was all for restoring the place. He thinks 'twould be more stylish and up-to-date if you was to put new-style paper on the walls, and let him furnish it up for you with nice golden oak. Henry's got real good taste. You'd ought to see our sideboard he gave me Chris'mas, with a mirror and all."

Having thus discharged her wifely duty, as it appeared to her, Mrs. Daggett promptly turned her back upon it.

"But you don't want any golden oak sideboards and like that in this house. Henry was telling me all about it, and how you were set on getting back the old Bolton furniture."

"Do you think I could?" asked the girl eagerly. "It was all sold about here, wasn't it? And don't you think if I was willing to pay a great deal for it people would—"

"'Course they would!" cried Mrs. Daggett, with cheerful assurance. "They'd be tickled half to death to get money for it. But, you see, dearie, it's a long time ago, and some folks have moved away, and there's been two or three fires, and I suppose some are not as careful as others; still—"

The smile faded on the girl's lips.

"But I can get some of it back; don't you think I can? I—I've quite set my heart on—restoring the house. I want it just as it used to be. The old furniture would suit the house so much better; don't you think it would?"

Mrs. Daggett clapped her plump hands excitedly.

"I've just thought of a way!" she exclaimed. "And I'll bet it'll work, too. You know Henry he keeps th' post office; an' 'most everybody for miles around comes after their mail to th' store. I'll tell him to put up a sign, right where everybody will see; something like this: 'Miss Lydia Orr wants to buy the old furniture of the Bolton house.' And you might mention casual you'd pay good prices for it. 'Twas real good, solid furniture, I remember.... Come to think of it, Mrs. Bolton collected quite a lot of it right 'round here. She was a city girl when she married Andrew Bolton, an' she took a great interest in queer old things. She bought a big tall clock out of somebody's attic, and four-posted beds, the kind folks used to sleep in, an' outlandish old cracked china plates with scenes on 'em. I recollect I gave her a blue and white teapot, with an eagle on the side that belonged to my grandmother. She thought it was perfectly elegant, and kept it full of rose-leaves and spice on the parlor mantelpiece. Land! I hadn't thought of that teapot for years and years. I don't know whatever became of it."

The sound of planes and hammers filled the silence that followed. Lydia was standing by the tall carved chair, her eyes downcast.

"I'm glad you thought of—that notice," she said at last. "If Mr. Daggett will see to it for me—I'll stop at the office tomorrow. And now, if you have time, I'd so like you to go over the house with me. You can tell me about the wall papers and—"

Mrs. Daggett arose with cheerful alacrity.

"I'd like nothing better," she declared. "I ain't been in the house for so long. Last time was the day of the auction; 'twas after they took the little girl away, I remember.... Oh, didn't nobody tell you? There was one child—a real, nice little girl. I forget her name; Mrs. Bolton used to call her Baby and Darling and like that. She was an awful pretty little girl, about as old as my Nellie. I've often wondered what became of her. Some of her relatives took her away, after her mother was buried. Poor little thing—her ma dead an' her pa shut up in prison—... Oh! yes; this was the parlor.... My! to think how the years have gone by, and me as slim as a match then. Now that's what I call a handsome mantel; and ain't the marble kept real pretty? There was all-colored rugs and a waxed floor in here, and a real old-fashioned sofa in that corner and a mahogany table with carved legs over here, and long lace curtains at the windows. I see they've fixed the ceilings as good as new and scraped all the old paper off the walls. There used to be some sort of patterned paper in here. I can't seem to think what color it was."

"I found quite a fresh piece behind the door," said Lydia. "See; I've put all the good pieces from the different rooms together, and marked them. I was wondering if Mr. Daggett could go to Boston for me? I'm sure he could match the papers there. You could go, too, if you cared to."

"To Boston!" exclaimed Mrs. Daggett; "me and Henry? Why, Miss Orr, what an idea! But Henry couldn't no more leave the post office—he ain't never left it a day since he was appointed postmaster. My, no! 'twouldn't do for Henry to take a trip clear to Boston. And me—I'm so busy I'd be like a fly trying t' get off sticky paper.... I do hate to see 'em struggle, myself."

She followed the girl up the broad stair, once more safe and firm, talking steadily all the way.

There were four large chambers, their windows framing lovely vistas of stream and wood and meadow, with the distant blue of the far horizon melting into the summer sky. Mrs. Daggett stopped in the middle of the wide hall and looked about her wonderingly.

"Why, yes," she said slowly. "You certainly did show good sense in buying this old house. They don't build them this way now-a-days. That's what I said to Mrs. Deacon Whittle— You know some folks thought you were kind of foolish not to buy Mrs. Solomon Black's house down in the village. But if you're going to live here all alone, dearie, ain't it going to be kind of lonesome—all these big rooms for a little body like you?"

"Tell me about it, please," begged Lydia. "I—I've been wondering which room was his."

"You mean Andrew Bolton's, I s'pose," said Mrs. Daggett reluctantly. "But I hope you won't worry any over what folks tells you about the day he was taken away. My! seems as if 'twas yesterday."

She moved softly into one of the spacious, sunny rooms and stood looking about her, as if her eyes beheld once more the tragedy long since folded into the past.

"I ain't going to tell you anything sad," she said under her breath. "It's best forgot. This was their room; ain't it nice an' cheerful? I like a southwest room myself. And 'tain't a bit warm here, what with the breeze sweeping in at the four big windows and smelling sweet of clover an' locust blooms. And ain't it lucky them trees didn't get blown over last winter?"

She turned abruptly toward the girl.

"Was you thinking of sleeping in this room, dearie? It used to have blue and white paper on it, and white paint as fresh as milk. It'd be nice and pleasant for a young lady, I should think."

Lydia shook her head.

"Not," she said slowly, "if it was his room. I think I'd rather—which was the little girl's room? You said there was a child?"

"Now, I'm real sorry you feel that way," sympathized Mrs. Daggett, "but I don't know as I blame you, the way folks talk. You'd think they'd have forgot all about it by now, wouldn't you? But land! it does seem as if bad thoughts and mean thoughts, and like that, was possessed to fasten right on to folks; and you can't seem to shake 'em off, no more than them spiteful little stick-tights that get all over your clo'es.... This room right next belonged to their baby. Let me see; she must have been about three and a half or four years old when they took her away. See, there's a door in between, so Mrs. Bolton could get to her quick in the night. I used to be that way, too, with my children.... You know we lost our two little girls that same winter, three and five, they were. But I know I wanted 'em right where I could hear 'em if they asked for a drink of water, or like that, in the night. Folks has a great notion now-a-days of putting their babies off by themselves and letting them cry it out, as they say. But I couldn't ever do that; and Mrs. Andrew Bolton she wa'n't that kind of a parent, either— I don't know as they ought to be called mothers. No, she was more like me—liked to tuck the blankets around her baby in the middle of th' night an' pat her down all warm and nice. I've often wondered what became of that poor little orphan child. We never heard. Like enough she died. I shouldn't wonder."

And Mrs. Daggett wiped the ready tears from her eyes.

"But I guess you'll think I'm a real old Aunty Doleful, going on this way," she made haste to add.

"There's plenty of folks in Brookville as 'll tell you how stuck-up an' stylish Mrs. Andrew Bolton was, always dressed in silk of an afternoon and driving out with a two-horse team, an' keeping two hired girls constant, besides a man to work in her flower garden and another for the barn. But of course she supposed they were really rich and could afford it. He never let on to her, after things begun to go to pieces; and folks blamed her for it, afterwards. Her heart was weak, and he knew it, all along. And then I suppose he thought mebbe things would take a turn.... Yes; the paper in this room was white with little wreaths of pink roses tied up with blue ribbons all over it. 'Twas furnished up real pretty with white furniture, and there was ruffled muslin curtains with dots on 'em at the windows and over the bed; Mrs. Andrew Bolton certainly did fix things up pretty, and to think you're going to have it just the same way. Well, I will say you couldn't do any better.... But, land! if there isn't the sun going down behind the hill, and me way out here, with Henry's supper to get, and Dolly champing his bit impatient. There's one lucky thing, though; he'll travel good, going towards home; he won't stop to get his tail over the lines, neither."

An hour later, when the long summer twilight was deepening into gloom, Jim Dodge crossed the empty library and paused at the open door of the room beyond. The somber light from the two tall windows fell upon the figure of the girl. She was sitting before Andrew Bolton's desk, her head upon her folded arms. Something in the spiritless droop of her shoulders and the soft dishevelment of her fair hair suggested weariness—sleep, perhaps. But as the young man hesitated on the threshold the sound of a muffled sob escaped the quiet figure. He turned noiselessly and went away, sorry and ashamed, because unwittingly he had stumbled upon the clew he had long been seeking.



Chapter XI

"Beside this stone wall I want flowers," Lydia was saying to her landscape-gardener, as she persisted in calling Jim Dodge. "Hollyhocks and foxgloves and pinies—I shall never say peony in Brookville—and pansies, sweet williams, lads' love, iris and sweetbrier. Mrs. Daggett has promised to give me some roots."

He avoided her eyes as she faced him in the bright glow of the morning sunlight.

"Very well, Miss Orr," he said, with cold respect. "You want a border here about four feet wide, filled with old-fashioned perennials."

He had been diligent in his study of the books she had supplied him with.

"A herbaceous border of that sort in front of the stone wall will give quite the latest effect in country-house decoration," he went on professionally. "Ramblers of various colors might be planted at the back, and there should be a mixture of bulbs among the taller plants to give color in early spring."

She listened doubtfully.

"I don't know about the ramblers," she said. "Were there ramblers—twenty years ago? I want it as nearly as possible just as it was. Mrs. Daggett told me yesterday about the flower-border here. You—of course you don't remember the place at all; do you?"

He reddened slightly under her intent gaze.

"Oh, I remember something about it," he told her; "the garden was a long time going down. There were flowers here a few years back; but the grass and weeds got the better of them."

"And do you—remember the Boltons?" she persisted. "I was so interested in what Mrs. Daggett told me about the family yesterday. It seems strange to think no one has lived here since. And now that I—it is to be my home, I can't help thinking about them."

"You should have built a new house," said Jim Dodge. "A new house would have been better and cheaper, in the end."

He thrust his spade deep, a sign that he considered the conversation at an end.

"Tell one of the other men to dig this," she objected. "I want to make a list of the plants we need and get the order out."

"I can do that tonight, Miss Orr," he returned, going on with his digging. "The men are busy in the orchards this morning."

"You want me to go away," she inferred swiftly.

He flung down his spade.

"It is certainly up to me to obey orders," he said. "Pardon me, if I seem to have forgotten the fact. Shall we make the list now?"

Inwardly he was cursing himself for his stupidity. Perhaps he had been mistaken the night before. His fancy had taken a swift leap in the dark and landed—where? There was a sort of scornful honesty in Jim Dodge's nature which despised all manner of shams and petty deceits. His code also included a strict minding of his own business. He told himself rather sharply that he was a fool for suspecting that Lydia Orr was other than she had represented herself to be. She had been crying the night before. What of that? Other girls cried over night and smiled the next morning—his sister Fanny, for example. It was an inexplicable habit of women. His mother had once told him, rather vaguely, that it did her good to have a regular crying-spell. It relieved her nerves, she said, and sort of braced her up....

"Of course I didn't mean that," Lydia was at some pains to explain, as the two walked toward the veranda where there were chairs and a table.

She was looking fair and dainty in a gown of some thin white stuff, through which her neck and arms showed slenderly.

"It's too warm to dig in the ground this morning," she decided. "And anyway, planning the work is far more important."

"Than doing it?" he asked quizzically. "If we'd done nothing but plan all this; why you see—"

He made a large gesture which included the carpenters at work on the roof, painters perilously poised on tall ladders and a half dozen men busy spraying the renovated orchards.

"I see," she returned with a smile, "—now that you've so kindly pointed it out to me."

He leveled a keen glance at her. It was impossible not to see her this morning in the light of what he thought he had discovered the night before.

"I've done nothing but make plans all my life," she went on gravely. "Ever since I can remember I've been thinking—thinking and planning what I should do when I grew up. It seemed such a long, long time—being just a little girl, I mean, and not able to do what I wished. But I kept on thinking and planning, and all the while I was growing up; and then at last—it all happened as I wished."

She appeared to wait for his question. But he remained silent, staring at the blue rim of distant hills.

"You don't ask me—you don't seem to care what I was planning," she said, her voice timid and uncertain.

He glanced quickly at her. Something in her look stirred him curiously. It did not occur to him that her appeal and his instant response to it were as old as the race.

"I wish you would tell me," he urged. "Tell me everything!"

She drew a deep breath, her eyes misty with dreams.

"For a long time I taught school," she went on, "but I couldn't save enough that way. I never could have saved enough, even if I had lived on bread and water. I wanted—I needed a great deal of money, and I wasn't clever nor particularly well educated. Sometimes I thought if I could only marry a millionaire—"

He stared at her incredulously.

"You don't mean that," he said with some impatience.

She sighed.

"I'm telling you just what happened," she reminded him. "It seemed the only way to get what I wanted. I thought I shouldn't mind that, or—anything, if I could only have as much money as I needed."

A sense of sudden violent anger flared up within him. Did the girl realize what she was saying?

She glanced up at him.

"I never meant to tell any one about that part of it," she said hurriedly. "And—it wasn't necessary, after all; I got the money another way."

He bit off the point of a pencil he had been sharpening with laborious care.

"I should probably never have had a chance to marry a millionaire," she concluded reminiscently. "I'm not beautiful enough."

With what abominable clearness she understood the game: the marriage-market; the buyer and the price.

"I—didn't suppose you were like that," he muttered, after what seemed a long silence.

She seemed faintly surprised.

"Of course you don't know me," she said quickly. "Does any man know any woman, I wonder?"

"They think they do," he stated doggedly; "and that amounts to the same thing."

His thoughts reverted for an uncomfortable instant to Wesley Elliot and Fanny. It was only too easy to see through Fanny.

"Most of them are simple souls, and thank heaven for it!"

His tone was fervently censorious.

She smiled understandingly.

"Perhaps I ought to tell you further that a rich man—not a millionaire; but rich enough—actually did ask me to marry him, and I refused."

"H'mph!"

"But," she added calmly, "I think I should have married him, if I had not had money left me first—before he asked me, I mean. I knew all along that what I had determined to do, I could do best alone."

He stared at her from under gathered brows. He still felt that curious mixture of shame and anger burning hotly within.

"Just why are you telling me all this?" he demanded roughly.

She returned his look quietly.

"Because," she said, "you have been trying to guess my secret for a long time and you have succeeded; haven't you?"

He was speechless.

"You have been wondering about me, all along. I could see that, of course. I suppose everybody in Brookville has been wondering and—and talking. I meant to be frank and open about it—to tell right out who I was and what I came to do. But—somehow—I couldn't.... It didn't seem possible, when everybody—you see I thought it all happened so long ago people would have forgotten. I supposed they would be just glad to get their money back. I meant to give it to them—all, every dollar of it. I didn't care if it took all I had.... And then—I heard you last night when you crossed the library. I hoped—you would ask me why—but you didn't. I thought, first, of telling Mrs. Daggett; she is a kind soul. I had to tell someone, because he is coming home soon, and I may need—help."

Her eyes were solemn, beseeching, compelling.

His anger died suddenly, leaving only a sort of indignant pity for her unfriended youth.

"You are—" he began, then stopped short. A painter was swiftly descending his ladder, whistling as he came.

"My name," she said, without appearing to notice, "is Lydia Orr Bolton. No one seems to remember—perhaps they didn't know my mother's name was Orr. My uncle took me away from here. I was only a baby. It seemed best to—"

"Where are they now?" he asked guardedly.

The painter had disappeared behind the house. But he could hear heavy steps on the roof over their heads.

"Both are dead," she replied briefly. "No one knew my uncle had much money; we lived quite simply and unpretentiously in South Boston. They never told me about the money; and all those years I was praying for it! Well, it came to me—in time."

His eyes asked a pitying question.

"Oh, yes," she sighed. "I knew about father. They used to take me to visit him in the prison. Of course I didn't understand, at first. But gradually, as I grew older, I began to realize what had happened—to him and to me. It was then I began to make plans. He would be free, sometime; he would need a home. Once he tried to escape, with some other men. A guard shot my father; he was in the prison-hospital a long time. They let me see him then without bars between, because they were sure he would die."

"For God's sake," he interrupted hoarsely. "Was there no one—?"

She shook her head.

"That was after my aunt died: I went alone. They watched me closely at first; but afterward they were kinder. He used to talk about home—always about home. He meant this house, I found. It was then I made up my mind to do anything to get the money.... You see I knew he could never be happy here unless the old wrongs were righted first. I saw I must do all that; and when, after my uncle's death, I found that I was rich—really rich, I came here as soon as I could. There wasn't any time to lose."

She fell silent, her eyes shining luminously under half closed lids. She seemed unconscious of his gaze riveted upon her face. It was as if a curtain had been drawn aside by her painful effort. He was seeing her clearly now and without cloud of passion—in all her innocence, her sadness, set sacredly apart from other women by the long devotion of her thwarted youth. An immense compassion took possession of him. He could have fallen at her feet praying her forgiveness for his mean suspicions, his harsh judgment.

The sound of hammers on the veranda roof above their heads appeared to rouse her.

"Don't you think I ought to tell—everybody?" she asked hurriedly.

He considered her question in silence for a moment. The bitterness against Andrew Bolton had grown and strengthened with the years into something rigid, inexorable. Since early boyhood he had grown accustomed to the harsh, unrelenting criticisms, the brutal epithets applied to this man who had been trusted with money and had defaulted. Even children, born long after the failure, reviled the name of the man who had made their hard lot harder. It had been the juvenile custom to throw stones at the house he had lived in. He remembered with fresh shame the impish glee with which, in company with other boys of his own age, he had trampled the few surviving flowers and broken down the shrubs in the garden. The hatred of Bolton, like some malignant growth, had waxed monstrous from what it preyed upon, ruining and distorting the simple kindly life of the village. She was waiting for his answer.

"It would seem so much more honest," she said in a tired voice. "Now they can only think me eccentric, foolishly extravagant, lavishly generous—when I am trying— I didn't dare to ask Deacon Whittle or Judge Fulsom for a list of the creditors, so I paid a large sum—far more than they would have asked—for the house. And since then I have bought the old bank building. I should like to make a library there."

"Yes, I know," he said huskily.

"Then the furniture—I shall pay a great deal for that. I want the house to look just as it used to, when father comes home. You see he had an additional sentence for trying to escape and for conspiracy; and since then his mind—he doesn't seem to remember everything. Sometimes he calls me Margaret. He thinks I am—mother."

Her voice faltered a little.

"You mustn't tell them," he said vehemently. "You mustn't!"

He saw with terrible clearness what it would be like: the home-coming of the half-imbecile criminal, and the staring eyes, the pointing fingers of all Brookville leveled at him. She would be overborne by the shame of it all—trampled like a flower in the mire.

She seemed faintly disappointed.

"But I would far rather tell," she persisted. "I have had so much to conceal—all my life!"

She flung out her hands in a gesture of utter weariness.

"I was never allowed to mention father to anyone," she went on. "My aunt was always pointing out what a terrible thing it would be for any one to find out—who I was. She didn't want me to know; but uncle insisted. I think he was sorry for—father.... Oh, you don't know what it is like to be in prison for years—to have all the manhood squeezed out of one, drop by drop! I think if it hadn't been for me he would have died long ago. I used to pretend I was very gay and happy when I went to see him. He wanted me to be like that. It pleased him to think my life had not been clouded by what he called his mistake.... He didn't intend to wreck the bank, Mr. Dodge. He thought he was going to make the village rich and prosperous."

She leaned forward. "I have learned to smile during all these years. But now, I want to tell everybody—I long to be free from pretending! Can't you see?"

Something big and round in his throat hurt him so that he could not answer at once. He clenched his hands, enraged by the futility of his pity for her.

"Mrs. Daggett seems a kind soul," she murmured. "She would be my friend. I am sure of it. But—the others—"

She sighed.

"I used to fancy how they would all come to the station to meet him—after I had paid everybody, I mean—how they would crowd about him and take his hand and tell him they were glad it was all over; then I would bring him home, and he would never even guess it had stood desolate during all these years. He has forgotten so much already; but he remembers home—oh, quite perfectly. I went to see him last week, and he spoke of the gardens and orchards. That is how I knew how to have things planted: he told me."

He got hastily to his feet: her look, her voice—the useless smart of it all was swiftly growing unbearable.

"You must wait—I must think!" he said unsteadily. "You ought not to have told me."

"Do you think I should have told the minister, instead?" she asked rather piteously. "He has been very kind; but somehow—"

"What! Wesley Elliot?"

His face darkened.

"Thank heaven you did not tell him! I am at least no—"

He checked himself with an effort.

"See here," he said: "You—you mustn't speak to any one of what you have told me—not for the present, anyway. I want you to promise me."

Her slight figure sagged wearily against the back of her chair. She was looking up at him like a child spent with an unavailing passion of grief.

"I have promised that so many times," she murmured: "I have concealed everything so long—it will be easier for me."

"It will be easier for you," he agreed quickly; "and—perhaps better, on the whole."

"But they will not know they are being paid—they won't understand—"

"That makes no difference," he decided. "It would make them, perhaps, less contented to know where the money was coming from. Tell me, does your servant—this woman you brought from Boston; does she know?"

"You mean Martha? I—I'm not sure. She was a servant in my uncle's home for years. She wanted to live with me, so I sent for her. I never spoke to her about—father. She seems devoted to me. I have thought it would be necessary to tell her—before— He is coming in September. Everything will be finished by then."

His eyes were fixed blankly on the hedge; something—a horse's ears, perhaps—was bobbing slowly up and down; a faint rattle of wheels came to their ears.

"Don't tell anyone, yet," he urged, and stepped down from the veranda, his unseeing gaze still fixed upon the slow advance of those bobbing ears.

"Someone is coming," she said.

He glanced at her, marveling at the swift transition in her face. A moment before she had been listless, sad, disheartened by his apparent disapproval of her plans. Now all at once the cloud had vanished; she was once more cheerful, calm, even smiling.

She too had been looking and had at once recognized the four persons seated in the shabby old carryall which at that moment turned in at the gate.

"I am to have visitors," she said tranquilly.

His eyes reluctantly followed hers. There were four women in the approaching vehicle.

As on another occasion, the young man beat a swift retreat.



Chapter XII

"I am sure I don't know what you'll think of us gadding about in the morning so," began Mrs. Dix, as she caught sight of Lydia.

Mrs. Dix was sitting in the back seat of the carryall with Mrs. Dodge. The two girls were in front. Lydia noticed mechanically that both were freshly gowned in white and that Fanny, who was driving, eyed her with haughty reserve from under the brim of her flower-laden hat. Ellen Dix had turned her head to gaze after Jim Dodge's retreating figure; her eyes returned to Lydia with an expression of sulky reluctance.

"I'm so glad to see you," said Lydia. "Won't you come in?"

"I should like to," said Mrs. Dodge. "Jim has been telling us about the improvements, all along."

"It certainly does look nice," chimed in Mrs. Dix. "I wouldn't have believed it possible, in such a little time, too. Just cramp that wheel a little more, Fanny."

The two older women descended from the carryall and began looking eagerly around.

"Just see how nice the grass looks," said Mrs. Dodge. "And the flowers! My! I didn't suppose Jim was that smart at fixing things up.... Aren't you going to get out, girls?"

The two girls still sat on the high front seat of the carryall; both were gazing at Lydia in her simple morning frock. There were no flowers on Lydia's Panama hat; nothing but a plain black band; but it had an air of style and elegance. Fanny was wishing she had bought a plain hat without roses. Ellen tossed her dark head:

"I don't know," she said. "You aren't going to stay long; are you, mother?"

"For pity sake, Ellen!" expostulated Mrs. Dodge briskly. "Of course you'll get out, and you, too, Fanny. The horse'll stand."

"Please do!" entreated Lydia.

Thus urged, the girls reluctantly descended. Neither was in the habit of concealing her feelings under the convenient cloak of society observance, and both were jealously suspicious of Lydia Orr. Fanny had met her only the week before, walking with Wesley Elliot along the village street. And Mrs. Solomon Black had told Mrs. Fulsom, and Mrs. Fulsom had told Mrs. Deacon Whittle, and Mrs. Whittle had told another woman, who had felt it to be her Christian duty (however unpleasant) to inform Fanny that the minister was "payin' attention to Miss Orr."

"Of course," the woman had pointed out, "it wasn't to be wondered at, special, seeing the Orr girl had every chance in the world to catch him—living right in the same house with him." Then she had further stated her opinions of men in general for Fanny's benefit. All persons of the male sex, according to this woman, were easily put upon, deceived and otherwise led astray by artful young women from the city, who were represented as perpetually on the lookout for easy marks, like Wesley Elliot.

"He ain't any different from other men, if he is a minister," said she with a comprehensive sniff. "They're all alike, as far as I can find out: anybody that's a mind to soft-soap them and flatter them into thinkin' they're something great can lead them right around by the nose. And besides, she's got money!"

Fanny had affected a haughty indifference to the doings of Wesley Elliot, which did not for a moment deceive her keen-eyed informer.

"Of course, anybody with eyes in their heads can see what's taken place," compassionated she, impaling the unfortunate Fanny on the prongs of her sympathy. "My! I was telling George only yesterday, I thought it was a perfect shame! and somebody ought to speak out real plain to the minister."

Whereat Fanny had been goaded into wishing the woman would mind her own business! She did wish everybody would leave her and her affairs alone! People had no right to talk! As for speaking to the minister; let any one dare—!

As for Ellen Dix, she had never quite forgiven Lydia for innocently acquiring the fox skin and she had by now almost persuaded herself that she was passionately in love with Jim Dodge. She had always liked him—at least, she had not actively disliked him, as some of the other girls professed to do. She had found his satirical tongue, his keen eyes and his real or affected indifference to feminine wiles pleasantly stimulating. There was some fun in talking to Jim Dodge. But of late she had not been afforded the opportunity. Fanny had explained to Ellen that Jim was working terribly hard, often rising at three and four in the morning to work on his own farm, and putting in long days at the Bolton place.

"She seems to have most of the men in Brookville doing for her," Ellen had remarked coldly.

Then the girls had exchanged cautious glances.

"There's something awfully funny about her coming here, anyway," said Ellen. "Everybody thinks it's queer."

"I expect she had a reason," said Fanny, avoiding Ellen's eyes.

After which brief interchange of opinion they had twined their arms about each other's waists and squeezed wordless understanding and sympathy. Henceforth, it was tacitly understood between the two girls that singly and collectively they did not "like" Lydia Orr.

Lydia understood without further explanation that she was not to look to her nearest neighbors for either friendship or the affection she so deeply craved. Both Ellen and Fanny had passed the place every day since its restoration began; but not once had either betrayed the slightest interest or curiosity in what was going on beyond the barrier of the hedge. To be sure, Fanny had once stopped to speak to her brother; but when Lydia had hurried hopefully out to greet her it was only to catch a glimpse of the girl's back as she walked quickly away.

Jim Dodge had explained, with some awkwardness, that Fanny was in a hurry....

"Well, now, I'll tell you, Miss Orr," Mrs. Dix was saying, as all five women walked slowly toward the house. "I was talking with Abby Daggett, and she was telling me about your wanting to get back the old furniture that used to be in the house. It seems Henry Daggett has put up a notice in the post office; but so far, he says, not very many pieces have been heard from. You know the men-folks generally go after the mail, and men are slow; there's no denying that. As like as not they haven't even mentioned seeing the notice to the folks at home."

"That's so," confirmed Mrs. Dodge, nodding her head. "I don't know as Jim would ever tell us anything that happened from morning till night. We just have to pump things out of him; don't we, Fanny? He'd never tell without we did. His father was just the same."

Fanny looked annoyed, and Ellen squeezed her arm with an amused giggle.

"I didn't know, mother, there was anything we wanted to know, particularly," she said coldly.

"Well, you know both of us have been real interested in the work here," protested Mrs. Dodge, wonderingly. "I remember you was asking Jim only last night if Miss Orr was really going to—"

"I hope you'll like to see the house," said Lydia, as if she had not heard; "of course, being here every day I don't notice the changes as you might."

"You aren't living here yet, are you?" asked Mrs. Dix. "I understood Mrs. Solomon Black to say you weren't going to leave her for awhile yet."

"No; I shall be there nights and Sundays till everything is finished here," said Lydia. "Mrs. Black makes me very comfortable."

"Well, I think most of us ladies had ought to give you a vote of thanks on account of feeding the men-folks, noons," put in Mrs. Dodge. "It saves a lot of time not to have to look after a dinner-pail."

"Mother," interrupted Fanny in a thin, sharp voice, quite unlike her own, "you know Jim always comes home to his dinner."

"Well, what if he does; I was speaking for the rest of th' women," said Mrs. Dodge. "I'm sure it's very kind of Miss Orr to think of such a thing as cooking a hot dinner for all those hungry men."

Mrs. Dodge had received a second check from the assignees that very morning from the sale of the old bank building, and she was proportionately cheerful and content.

"Well; if this isn't handsome!" cried Mrs. Dix, pausing in the hall to look about her. "I declare I'd forgotten how it used to look. This is certainly better than having an old ruin standing here. But, of course it brings back old days."

She sighed, her dark, comely face clouding with sorrow.

"You know," she went on, turning confidentially to Lydia, "that dreadful bank failure was the real cause of my poor husband's death. He never held up his head after that. They suspected at first he was implicated in the steal. But Mr. Dix wasn't anything like Andrew Bolton. No; indeed! He wouldn't have taken a cent that belonged to anybody else—not if he was to die for it!"

"That's so," confirmed Mrs. Dodge. "What Andrew Bolton got was altogether too good for him. Come right down to it, he wasn't no better than a murderer!"

And she nodded her head emphatically.

Fanny and Ellen, who stood looking on, reddened impatiently at this:

"I'm sick and tired of hearing about Andrew Bolton," complained Ellen. "I've heard nothing else since I can remember. It's a pity you bought this house, Miss Orr: I heard Mr. Elliot say it was like stirring up a horrid, muddy pool. Not very complimentary to Brookville; but then—"

"Don't you think people will—forget after a while?" asked Lydia, her blue eyes fixed appealingly on the two young faces. "I don't see why everybody should—"

"Well, if you'd fixed the house entirely different," said Mrs. Dix. "But having it put back, just as it was, and wanting the old furniture and all—whatever put that into your head, my dear?"

"I heard it was handsome and old—I like old things. And, of course, it was—more in keeping to restore the house as it was, than to—"

"Well, I s'pose that's so," conceded Mrs. Dodge, her quick dark eyes busy with the renovated interior. "I'd sort of forgot how it did look when the Boltons was livin' here. But speaking of furniture; I see Mrs. Judge Fulsom let you have the old sofa. I remember she got it at the auction; she's kept it in her parlor ever since."

"Yes," said Lydia. "I was only too happy to give a hundred dollars for the sofa. It has been excellently preserved."

"A hundred dollars!" echoed Mrs. Dix. "Well!"

Mrs. Dodge giggled excitedly, like a young girl.

"A hundred dollars!" she repeated. "Well, I want to know!"

The two women exchanged swift glances.

"You wouldn't want to buy any pieces that had been broke, I s'pose," suggested Mrs. Dodge.

"If they can be repaired, I certainly do," replied Lydia.

"Mother!" expostulated Fanny, in a low but urgent tone. "Ellen and I—we really ought to be going."

The girl's face glowed with shamed crimson. She felt haughty and humiliated and angry all at once. It was not to be borne.

Mrs. Dix was not listening to Fanny Dodge.

"I bid in the big, four-post mahogany bed at the auction," she said, "and the bureau to match; an' I believe there are two or three chairs about the house."

"We've got a table," chimed in Mrs. Dodge; "but one leg give away, an' I had it put up in the attic years ago. And Fanny's got a bed and bureau in her room that was painted white, with little pink flowers tied up with blue ribbons. Of course the paint is pretty well rubbed off; but—"

"Oh, might I have that set?" cried Lydia, turning to Fanny. "Perhaps you've grown fond of it and won't want to give it up. But I—I'd pay almost anything for it. And of course I shall want the mahogany, too."

"Well, we didn't know," explained Mrs. Dix, with dignity. "We got those pieces instead of the money we'd ought to have had from the estate. There was a big crowd at the auction, I remember; but nobody really wanted to pay anything for the old furniture. A good deal of it had come out of folks' attics in the first place."

"I shall be glad to pay three hundred dollars for the mahogany bed and bureau," said Lydia. "And for the little white set—"

"I don't care to part with my furniture," said Fanny Dodge, her pretty round chin uplifted.

She was taller than Lydia, and appeared to be looking over her head with an intent stare at the freshly papered wall beyond.

"For pity sake!" exclaimed her mother sharply. "Why, Fanny, you could buy a brand new set, an' goodness knows what-all with the money. What's the matter with you?"

"I know just how Fanny feels about having her room changed," put in Ellen Dix, with a spirited glance at the common enemy. "There are things that money can't buy, but some people don't seem to think so."

Lydia's blue eyes had clouded swiftly.

"If you'll come into the library," she said, "we'll have some lemonade. It's so very warm I'm sure we are all thirsty."

She did not speak of the furniture again, and after a little the visitors rose to go. Mrs. Dodge lingered behind the others to whisper:

"I'm sure I don't know what got into my Fanny. Only the other day she was wishing she might have her room done over, with new furniture and all. I'll try and coax her."

But Lydia shook her head.

"Please don't," she said. "I want that furniture very much; but—I know there are things money can't buy."

"Mebbe you wouldn't want it, if you was t' see it," was Mrs. Dodge's honest opinion. "It's all turned yellow, an' the pink flowers are mostly rubbed off. I remember it was real pretty when we first got it. It used to belong to Mrs. Bolton's little girl. I don't know as anybody's told you, but they had a little girl. My! what an awful thing for a child to grow up to! I've often thought of it. But mebbe she didn't live to grow up. None of us ever heard."

"Mother!" called Fanny, from the front seat of the carryall. "We're waiting for you."

"In a minute, Fanny," said Mrs. Dodge.... "Of course you can have that table I spoke of, Miss Orr, and anything else I can find in the attic, or around. An' I was thinking if you was to come down to the Ladies' Aid on Friday afternoon—it meets at Mrs. Mixter's this week, at two o'clock; you know where Mrs. Mixter lives, don't you? Well; anyway, Mrs. Solomon Black does, an' she generally comes. But I know lots of the ladies has pieces of that furniture; and most of them would be mighty glad to get rid of it. But they are like my Fanny—kind of contrary, and backward about selling things. I'll talk to Fanny when we get home. Why, she don't any more want that old painted set—"

"Mother!" Fanny's sweet angry voice halted the rapid progress of her mother's speech for an instant.

"I shouldn't wonder if the flies was bothering th' horse," surmised Mrs. Dodge; "he does fidget an' stamp somethin' terrible when the flies gets after him; his tail ain't so long as some.... Well, I'll let you know; and if you could drop around and see the table and all— Yes, some day this week. Of course I'll have to buy new furniture to put in their places; so will Mrs. Dix. But I will say that mahogany bed is handsome; they've got it in their spare room, and there ain't a scratch on it. I can guarantee that.... Yes; I guess the flies are bad today; looks like rain. Good-by!"

Lydia stood watching the carryall, as it moved away from under the milk-white pillars of the restored portico. Why did Fanny Dodge and Ellen Dix dislike her, she wondered, and what could she do to win their friendship? Her troubled thoughts were interrupted by Martha, the taciturn maid.

"I found this picture on the floor, Miss Lydia," said Martha; "did you drop it?"

Lydia glanced at the small, unmounted photograph. It was a faded snapshot of a picnic party under a big tree. Her eyes became at once riveted upon the central figures of the little group; the pretty girl in the middle was Fanny Dodge; and behind her—yes, surely, that was the young clergyman, Wesley Elliot. Something in the attitude of the man and the coquettish upward tilt of the girl's face brought back to her mind a forgotten remark of Mrs. Solomon Black's. Lydia had failed to properly understand it, at the time. Mrs. Solomon Black was given to cryptic remarks, and Lydia's mind had been preoccupied by the increasing difficulties which threatened the accomplishment of her purpose:

"A person, coming into a town like Brookville to live, by rights had ought to have eyes in the backs of their heads," Mrs. Black had observed.

It was at breakfast time, Lydia now remembered, and the minister was late, as frequently happened.

"I thought like's not nobody would mention it to you," Mrs. Black had further elucidated. "Of course he wouldn't say anything, men-folks are kind of sly and secret in their doings—even the best of 'em; and you'll find it's so, as you travel along life's path-way."

Mrs. Black had once written a piece of poetry and it had actually been printed in the Grenoble News; since then she frequently made use of figures of speech.

"A married woman and a widow can speak from experience," she went on. "So I thought I'd just tell you: he's as good as engaged, already."

"Do you mean Mr. Elliot?" asked Lydia incuriously.

Mrs. Black nodded.

"I thought you ought to know," she said.

Mr. Elliot had entered the room upon the heels of this warning, and Lydia had promptly forgotten it. Now she paused for a swift review of the weeks which had already passed since her arrival. Mr. Elliot had been unobtrusively kind and helpful from the first, she remembered. Later, he had been indefatigable in the matter of securing workmen for the restoration of the old house, when she made it clear to him that she did not want an architect and preferred to hire Brookville men exclusively. As seemed entirely natural, the minister had called frequently to inspect the progress of the work. Twice in their rounds together they had come upon Jim Dodge; and although the clergyman was affable in his recognition and greeting, Lydia had been unpleasantly surprised by the savage look on her landscape-gardener's face as he returned the polite salutation.

"Don't you like Mr. Elliot?" she had ventured to inquire, after the second disagreeable incident of the sort.

Jim Dodge had treated her to one of his dark-browed, incisive glances before replying.

"I'm afraid I can't answer that question satisfactorily, Miss Orr," was what he said.

And Lydia, wondering, desisted from further question.

"That middle one looks some like one of the young ladies that was here this morning," observed Martha, with the privileged familiarity of an old servant.

"She must have dropped it," said Lydia, slowly.

"The young ladies here in the country has very bad manners," commented Martha, puckering her lips primly. "I wouldn't put myself out for them, if I was you, mem."

Lydia turned the picture over and gazed abstractedly at the three words written there: "Lest we forget!" Beneath this pertinent quotation appeared the initials "W. E."

"If it was for me to say," went on Martha, in an injured tone, "I'd not be for feedin' up every man, woman and child that shows their face inside the grounds. Why, they don't appreciate it no more than—"

The woman's eloquent gesture appeared to include the blue-bottle fly buzzing noisily on the window-pane:

"Goodness gracious! if these flies ain't enough to drive a body crazy—what with the new paint and all...."



Chapter XIII

Lydia laid the picture carefully away in a pigeonhole of her desk. She was still thinking soberly of the subtle web of prejudices, feelings and conditions into which she had obtruded her one fixed purpose in life. But if Mr. Elliot had been as good as engaged to Fanny Dodge, as Mrs. Solomon Black had been at some pains to imply, in what way had she (Lydia) interfered with the denouement?

She shook her head at last over the intricacies of the imperfectly stated problem. The idea of coquetting with a man had never entered Lydia's fancy. Long since, in the chill spring of her girlhood, she had understood her position in life as compared with that of other girls. She must never marry. She must never fall in love, even. The inflexible Puritan code of her uncle's wife had found ready acceptance in Lydia's nature. If not an active participant in her father's crime, she still felt herself in a measure responsible for it. He had determined to grow rich and powerful for her sake. More than once, in the empty rambling talk which he poured forth in a turgid stream during their infrequent meetings, he had told her so, with extravagant phrase and gesture. And so, at last, she had come to share his punishment in a hundred secret, unconfessed ways. She ate scant food, slept on the hardest of beds, labored unceasingly, with the great, impossible purpose of some day making things right: of restoring the money they—she no longer said he—had stolen; of building again the waste places desolated by the fire of his ambition for her. There had followed that other purpose, growing ever stronger with the years, and deepening with the deepening stream of her womanhood: her love, her vast, unavailing pity for the broken and aging man, who would some day be free. She came at length to the time when she saw clearly that he would never leave the prison alive, unless in some way she could contrive to keep open the clogging springs of hope and desire. She began deliberately and with purpose to call back memories of the past: the house in which he had lived, the gardens and orchards in which he once had taken pride, his ambitious projects for village improvement.

"You shall have it all back, father!" she promised him, with passionate resolve. "And it will only be a little while to wait, now."

Thus encouraged, the prisoner's horizon widened, day by day. He appeared, indeed, to almost forget the prison, so busy was he in recalling trivial details and unimportant memories of events long since past. He babbled incessantly of his old neighbors, calling them by name, and chuckling feebly as he told her of their foibles and peculiarities.

"But we must give them every cent of the money, father," she insisted; "we must make everything right."

"Oh, yes! Oh, yes, we'll fix it up somehow with the creditors," he would say.

Then he would scowl and rub his shorn head with his tremulous old hands.

"What did they do with the house, Margaret?" he asked, over and over, a furtive gleam of anxiety in his eyes. "They didn't tear it down; did they?"

He waxed increasingly anxious on this point as the years of his imprisonment dwindled at last to months. And then her dream had unexpectedly come true. She had money—plenty of it—and nothing stood in the way. She could never forget the day she told him about the house. Always she had tried to quiet him with vague promises and imagined descriptions of a place she had completely forgotten.

"The house is ours, father," she assured him, jubilantly. "And I am having it painted on the outside."

"You are having it painted on the outside, Margaret? Was that necessary, already?"

"Yes, father.... But I am Lydia. Don't you remember? I am your little girl, grown up."

"Yes, yes, of course. You are like your mother— And you are having the house painted? Who's doing the job?"

She told him the man's name and he laughed rather immoderately.

"He'll do you on the white lead, if you don't watch him," he said. "I know Asa Todd. Talk about frauds— You must be sure he puts honest linseed oil in the paint. He won't, unless you watch him."

"I'll see to it, father."

"But whatever you do, don't let 'em into my room," he went on, after a frowning pause.

"You mean your library, father? I'm having the ceiling whitened. It—it needed it."

"I mean my bedroom, child. I won't have workmen pottering about in there."

"But you won't mind if they paint the woodwork, father? It—has grown quite yellow in places."

"Nonsense, my dear! Why, I had all the paint upstairs gone over—let me see—"

And he fell into one of his heavy moods of introspection which seemed, indeed, not far removed from torpor.

When she had at last roused him with an animated description of the vegetable garden, he appeared to have forgotten his objections to having workmen enter his chamber. And Lydia was careful not to recall it to his mind.

She was still sitting before his desk, ostensibly absorbed in the rows of incomprehensible figures Deacon Whittle, as general contractor, had urged upon her attention, when Martha again parted the heavy cloud of her thoughts.

"The minister, come to see you again," she announced, with a slight but mordant emphasis on the ultimate word.

"Yes," said Lydia, rousing herself, with an effort. "Mr. Elliot, you said?"

"I s'pose that's his name," conceded Martha ungraciously. "I set him in the dining room. It's about the only place with two chairs in it; an' I shan't have no time to make more lemonade, in case you wanted it, m'm."



Chapter XIV

The Reverend Wesley Elliot, looking young, eager and pleasingly worldly in a blue serge suit of unclerical cut, rose to greet her as she entered.

"I haven't been here in two or three days," he began, as he took the hand she offered, "and I'm really astonished at the progress you've been making."

He still retained her hand, as he smiled down into her grave, preoccupied face.

"What's the trouble with our little lady of Bolton House?" he inquired. "Any of the workmen on strike, or—"

She withdrew her hand with a faint smile.

"Everything is going very well, I think," she told him.

He was still scrutinizing her with that air of intimate concern, which inspired most of the women of his flock to unburden themselves of their manifold anxieties at his slightest word of encouragement.

"It's a pretty heavy burden for you," he said gravely. "You need some one to help you. I wonder if I couldn't shoulder a few of the grosser details?"

"You've already been most kind," Lydia said evasively. "But now— Oh, I think everything has been thought of. You know Mr. Whittle is looking after the work."

He smiled, a glimmer of humorous understanding in his fine dark eyes. "Yes, I know," he said.

A silence fell between them. Lydia was one of those rare women who do not object to silence. It seemed to her that she had always lived alone with her ambitions, which could not be shared, and her bitter knowledge, which was never to be spoken of. But now she stirred uneasily in her chair, aware of the intent expression in his eyes. Her troubled thoughts reverted to the little picture which had fluttered to the floor from somebody's keeping only an hour before.

"I've had visitors this morning," she told him, with purpose.

"Ah! people are sure to be curious and interested," he commented.

"They were Mrs. Dodge and her daughter and Mrs. Dix and Ellen," she explained.

"That must have been pleasant," he murmured perfunctorily. "Are you—do you find yourself becoming at all interested in the people about here? Of course it is easy to see you come to us from quite another world."

She shook her head.

"Oh, no," she said quickly. "—If you mean that I am superior in any way to the people of Brookville; I'm not, at all. I am really a very ordinary sort of a person. I've not been to college and—I've always worked, harder than most, so that I've had little opportunity for—culture."

His smile broadened into a laugh of genuine amusement.

"My dear Miss Orr," he protested, "I had no idea of intimating—"

Her look of passionate sincerity halted his words of apology.

"I am very much interested in the people here," she declared. "I want—oh, so much—to be friends with them! I want it more than anything else in the world! If they would only like me. But—they don't."

"How can they help it?" he exclaimed. "Like you? They ought to worship you! They shall!"

She shook her head sadly.

"No one can compel love," she said.

"Sometimes the love of one can atone for the indifference—even the hostility of the many," he ventured.

But she had not stooped to the particular, he perceived. Her thoughts were ranging wide over an unknown country whither, for the moment, he could not follow. He studied her abstracted face with its strangely aloof expression, like that of a saint or a fanatic, with a faint renewal of previous misgivings.

"I am very much interested in Fanny Dodge," she said abruptly.

"In—Fanny Dodge?" he repeated.

He became instantly angry with himself for the dismayed astonishment he had permitted to escape him, and increasingly so because of the uncontrollable tide of crimson which invaded his face.

She was looking at him, with the calm, direct gaze which had more than once puzzled him.

"You know her very well, don't you?"

"Why, of course, Miss Dodge is—she is—er—one of our leading young people, and naturally— She plays our little organ in church and Sunday School. Of course you've noticed. She is most useful and—er—helpful."

Lydia appeared to be considering his words with undue gravity.

"But I didn't come here this morning to talk to you about another woman," he said, with undeniable hardihood. "I want to talk to you—to you—and what I have to say—"

Lydia got up from her chair rather suddenly.

"Please excuse me a moment," she said, quite as if he had not spoken.

He heard her cross the hall swiftly. In a moment she had returned.

"I found this picture on the floor—after they had gone," she said, and handed him the photograph.

He stared at it with unfeigned astonishment.

"Oh, yes," he murmured. "Well—?"

"Turn it over," she urged, somewhat breathlessly.

He obeyed, and bit his lip angrily.

"What of it?" he demanded. "A quotation from Kipling's Recessional—a mere commonplace.... Yes; I wrote it."

Then his anger suddenly left him. His mind had leaped to the solution of the matter, and the solution appeared to Wesley Elliot as eminently satisfying; it was even amusing. What a transparent, womanly little creature she was, to be sure! He had not been altogether certain of himself as he walked out to the old Bolton place that morning. But oddly enough, this girlish jealousy of hers, this pretty spite—he found it piquantly charming.

"I wrote it," he repeated, his indulgent understanding of her mood lurking in smiling lips and eyes, "on the occasion of a particularly grubby Sunday School picnic: I assure you I shall not soon forget the spiders which came to an untimely end in my lemonade, nor the inquisitive ants which explored my sandwiches."

She surveyed him unsmilingly.

"But you did not mean that," she said. "You were thinking of something—quite different."

He frowned thoughtfully. Decidedly, this matter should be settled between them at once and for ever. A clergyman, he reflected, must always be on friendly—even confidential terms with a wide variety of women. His brief experience had already taught him this much. And a jealous or unduly suspicious wife might prove a serious handicap to future success.

"Won't you sit down," he urged. "I—You must allow me to explain. We—er—must talk this over."

She obeyed him mechanically. All at once she was excessively frightened at what she had attempted. She knew nothing of the ways of men; but she felt suddenly sure that he would resent her interference as an unwarrantable impertinence.

"I thought—if you were going there today—you might take it—to her," she hesitated. "Or, I could send it. It is a small matter, of course."

"I think," he said gravely, "that it is a very serious matter."

She interpreted uncertainly the intent gaze of his beautiful, somber eyes.

"I came here," she faltered, "to—to find a home. I had no wish—"

"I understand," he said, his voice deep and sympathetic; "people have been talking to you—about me. Am I right?"

She was silent, a pink flush slowly staining her cheeks.

"You have not yet learned upon what slight premises country women, of the type we find in Brookville, arrive at the most unwarrantable conclusions," he went on carefully. "I did not myself sufficiently realize this, at first. I may have been unwise."

"No, you were not!" she contradicted him unexpectedly.

His lifted eyebrows expressed surprise.

"I wish you would explain to me—" he began.

Then stopped short. How indeed could she explain, when as yet he had not made clear to her his own purpose, which had grown steadily with the passing weeks?

"You will let me speak, first," he concluded inadequately.

He hastily reviewed the various phrases which arose to his lips and rejected them one by one. There was some peculiar quality of coldness, of reserve—he could not altogether make it clear to himself: it might well be the knowledge of her power, her wealth, which lent that almost austere expression to her face. It was evident that her wonted composure had been seriously disturbed by the unlucky circumstance of the photograph. He had permitted the time and occasion which had prompted him to write those three fatefully familiar words on the back of the picture altogether to escape him. If he chose to forget, why should Fanny Dodge, or any one else, persist in remembering?

And above all, why should the girl have chosen to drop this absurd memento of the most harmless of flirtations at the feet of Lydia? There could be but one reasonable explanation.... Confound women, anyway!

"I had not meant to speak, yet," he went on, out of the clamoring multitude of his thoughts. "I felt that we ought—"

He became suddenly aware of Lydia's eyes. There was no soft answering fire, no maidenly uncertainty of hope and fear in those clear depths.

"It is very difficult for me to talk of this to you," she said slowly. "You will think me over-bold—unmannerly, perhaps. But I can't help that. I should never have thought of your caring for me—you will at least do me the justice to believe that."

"Lydia!" he interrupted, poignantly distressed by her evident timidity—her exquisite hesitation, "let me speak! I understand—I know—"

She forbade him with a gesture, at once pleading and peremptory.

"No," she said. "No! I began this, I must go on to the end. What you ought to understand is this: I am not like other women. I want only friendship from every one. I shall never ask more. I can never accept more—from any one. I want you to know this—now."

"But I—do you realize—"

"I want your friendship," she went on, facing him with a sort of desperate courage; "but more than any kindness you can offer me, Mr. Elliot, I want the friendship of Fanny Dodge, of Ellen Dix—of all good women. I need it! Now you know why I showed you the picture. If you will not give it to her, I shall. I want her—I want every one—to understand that I shall never come between her and the slightest hope she may have cherished before my coming to Brookville. All I ask is—leave to live here quietly—and be friendly, as opportunity offers."

Her words, her tone were not to be mistaken. But even the sanest and wisest of men has never thus easily surrendered the jealously guarded stronghold of sex. Wesley Elliot's youthful ideas of women were totally at variance with the disconcerting conviction which strove to invade his mind. He had experienced not the slightest difficulty, up to the present moment, in classifying them, neatly and logically; but there was no space in his mental files for a woman such as Lydia Orr was representing herself to be. It was inconceivable, on the face of it! All women demanded admiration, courtship, love. They always had; they always would. The literature of the ages attested it. He had been too precipitate—too hasty. He must give her time to recover from the shock she must have experienced from hearing the spiteful gossip about himself and Fanny Dodge. On the whole, he admired her courage. What she had said could not be attributed to the mere promptings of vulgar sex-jealousy. Very likely Fanny had been disagreeable and haughty in her manner. He believed her capable of it. He sympathized with Fanny; with the curious mental aptitude of a sensitive nature, he still loved Fanny. It had cost him real effort to close the doors of his heart against her.

"I admire you more than I can express for what you have had the courage to tell me," he assured her. "And you will let me see that I understand—more than you think."

"It is impossible that you should understand," she said tranquilly. "But you will, at least, remember what I have said?"

"I will," he promised easily. "I shall never forget it!"

A slight humorous smile curved the corners of his handsome mouth.

"Now this—er—what shall we call it?—'bone of contention' savors too strongly of wrath and discomfiture; so we'll say, simply and specifically, this photograph—which chances to have a harmless quotation inscribed upon its reverse: Suppose I drop it in the waste-basket? I can conceive that it possesses no particular significance or value for any one. I assure you most earnestly that it does not—for me."

He made as though he would have carelessly torn the picture across, preparatory to making good his proposal.

She stopped him with a swift gesture.

"Give it to me," she said. "It is lost property, and I am responsible for its safe-keeping."

She perceived that she had completely failed in her intention.

"What are you going to do with it?" he inquired, with an easy assumption of friendliness calculated to put her more completely at her ease with him.

"I don't know. For the present, I shall put it back in my desk."

"Better take my advice and destroy it," he persisted. "It—er—is not valuable evidence. Or—I believe on second thought I shall accept your suggestion and return it myself to its probable owner."

He was actually laughing, his eyes brimming with boyish mischief.

"I think it belongs to Miss Dix," he told her audaciously.

"To Miss Dix?" she echoed.

"Yes; why not? Don't you see the fair Ellen among the group?"

Her eyes blazed suddenly upon him; her lips trembled.

"Forgive me!" he cried, aghast at his own folly.

She retreated before his outstretched hands.

"I didn't mean to—to make light of what appears so serious a matter to you," he went on impetuously. "It is only that it is not serious; don't you see? It is such a foolish little mistake. It must not come between us, Lydia!"

"Please go away, at once," she interrupted him breathlessly, "and—and think of what I have said to you. Perhaps you didn't believe it; but you must believe it!"

Then, because he did not stir, but instead stood gazing at her, his puzzled eyes full of questions, entreaties, denials, she quietly closed a door between them. A moment later he heard her hurrying feet upon the stair.



Chapter XV

August was a month of drought and intense heat that year; by the first week in September the stream had dwindled to the merest silver thread, its wasted waters floating upward in clouds of impalpable mist at dawn and evening to be lost forever in the empty vault of heaven. Behind the closed shutters of the village houses, women fanned themselves in the intervals of labor over superheated cookstoves. Men consulted their thermometers with incredulous eyes. Springs reputed to be unfailing gradually ceased their cool trickle. Wells and cisterns yielded little save the hollow sound of the questing bucket. There was serious talk of a water famine in Brookville. At the old Bolton house, however, there was still water in abundance. In jubilant defiance of blazing heavens and parching earth the Red-Fox Spring—tapped years before by Andrew Bolton and piped a mile or more down the mountain side, that his household, garden and stock might never lack of pure cold water—gushed in undiminished volume, filling and overflowing the new cement reservoir, which had been one of Lydia Orr's cautious innovations in the old order of things.

The repairs on the house were by now finished, and the new-old mansion, shining white amid the chastened luxuriance of ancient trees, once more showed glimpses of snowy curtains behind polished windowpanes. Flowers, in a lavish prodigality of bloom the Bolton house of the past had never known, flanked the old stone walls, bordered the drives, climbed high on trellises and arbors, and blazed in serried ranks beyond the broad sweep of velvet turf, which repaid in emerald freshness its daily share of the friendly water.

Mrs. Abby Daggett gazed at the scene in rapt admiration through the clouds of dust which uprose from under Dolly's scuffling feet.

"Ain't that place han'some, now she's fixed it up?" she demanded of Mrs. Deacon Whittle, who sat bolt upright at her side, her best summer hat, sparsely decorated with purple flowers, protected from the suffocating clouds of dust by a voluminous brown veil. "I declare I'd like to stop in and see the house, now it's all furnished up—if only for a minute."

"We ain't got time, Abby," Mrs. Whittle pointed out. "There's work to cut out after we get to Mis' Dix's, and it was kind of late when we started."

Mrs. Daggett relinquished her random desire with her accustomed amiability. Life consisted mainly in giving up things, she had found; but being cheerful, withal, served to cast a mellow glow over the severest denials; in fact, it often turned them into something unexpectedly rare and beautiful.

"I guess that's so, Ann," she agreed. "Dolly got kind of fractious over his headstall when I was harnessin'. He don't seem to like his sun hat, and I dunno's I blame him. I guess if our ears stuck up through the top of our bunnits like his we wouldn't like it neither."

Mrs. Whittle surveyed the animal's grotesquely bonneted head with cold disfavor.

"What simple ideas you do get into your mind, Abby," said she, with the air of one conscious of superior intellect. "A horse ain't human, Abby. He ain't no idea he's wearing a hat.... The Deacon says their heads get hotter with them rediculous bunnits on. He favors a green branch."

"Well," said Mrs. Daggett, foiling a suspicious movement of Dolly's switching tail, "mebbe that's so; I feel some cooler without a hat. But 'tain't safe to let the sun beat right down, the way it does, without something between. Then, you see, Henry's got a lot o' these horse hats in the store to sell. So of course Dolly, he has to wear one."