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+**The Project Gutenberg Etext of He Fell In Love With His Wife**
+by Edward P. Roe
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+He Fell In Love With His Wife
+
+by Edward P. Roe
+
+June, 2000  [Etext #2271]
+
+
+**The Project Gutenberg Etext of He Fell In Love With His Wife**
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+
+
+HE FELL IN LOVE WITH HIS WIFE
+
+by Edward P. Roe
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+Chapter
+I      Left Alone
+II     A Very Interested Friend
+III    Mrs. Mumpson Negotiates and Yields
+IV     Domestic Bliss
+V      Mrs. Mumpson Takes up Her Burdens
+VI     A Marriage?
+VII    From Home to the Street
+VIII   Holcroft's View of Matrimony
+IX     Mrs. Mumpson Accepts Her Mission
+X      A Night of Terror
+XI     Baffled
+XII    Jane
+XIII   Not Wife, But Waif
+XIV    A Pitched Battle
+XV     "What is to Become of Me?"
+XVI    Mrs. Mumpson's Vicissitudes
+XVII   A Momentous Decision
+XVIII  Holcroft Gives His Hand
+XIX    A Business Marriage
+XX     Uncle Jonathan's Impression of the Bride
+XXI    At Home
+XXII   Getting Acquainted
+XXIII  Between the Past and Future
+XXIV   Given Her Own Way
+XXV    A Charivari
+XXVI   "You don't Know"
+XXVII  Farm and Farmer Bewitched
+XXVIII Another Waif
+XXIX   Husband and Wife in Trouble
+XXX    Holcroft's Best Hope
+XXXI   "Never!"
+XXXII  Jane Plays Mouse to the Lion
+XXXIII "Shrink From YOU?"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I. Left Alone
+
+The dreary March evening is rapidly passing from murky gloom to obscurity. 
+Gusts of icy rain and sleet are sweeping full against a man who, though
+driving, bows his head so low that he cannot see his horses.  The patient
+beasts, however, plod along the miry road, unerringly taking their course to
+the distant stable door.  The highway sometimes passes through a grove on the
+edge of a forest, and the trees creak and groan as they writhe in the heavy
+blasts.  In occasional groups of pines there is sighing and moaning almost
+human in suggestiveness of trouble.  Never had Nature been in a more dismal
+mood, never had she been more prodigal of every element of discomfort, and
+never had the hero of my story been more cast down in heart and hope than on
+this chaotic day which, even to his dull fancy, appeared closing in harmony
+with his feelings and fortune.  He is going home, yet the thought brings no
+assurance of welcome and comfort.  As he cowers upon the seat of his market
+wagon, he is to the reader what he is in the fading light--a mere dim outline
+of a man.  His progress is so slow that there will be plenty of time to relate
+some facts about him which will make the scenes and events to follow more
+intelligible.
+
+James Holcroft is a middle-aged man and the owner of a small, hilly farm.  He
+had inherited his rugged acres from his father, had always lived upon them,
+and the feeling had grown strong with the lapse of time that he could live
+nowhere else.  Yet he knew that he was, in the vernacular of the region,
+"going down-hill."  The small savings of years were slowly melting away, and
+the depressing feature of this truth was that he did not see how he could help
+himself.  He was not a sanguine man, but rather one endowed with a hard,
+practical sense which made it clear that the down-hill process had only to
+continue sufficiently long to leave him landless and penniless.  It was all so
+distinct on this dismal evening that he groaned aloud.
+
+"If it comes to that, I don't know what I'll do--crawl away on a night like
+this and give up, like enough."
+
+Perhaps he was right.  When a man with a nature like his "gives up," the end
+has come.  The low, sturdy oaks that grew so abundantly along the road were
+types of his character--they could break, but not bend.  He had little
+suppleness, little power to adapt himself to varied conditions of life.  An
+event had occurred a year since, which for months, he could only contemplate
+with dull wonder and dismay.  In his youth he had married the daughter of a
+small farmer.  Like himself, she had always been accustomed to toil and frugal
+living.  From childhood she had been impressed with the thought that parting
+with a dollar was a serious matter, and to save a dollar one of the good deeds
+rewarded in this life and the life to come.  She and her husband were in
+complete harmony on this vital point.  Yet not a miserly trait entered into
+their humble thrift.  It was a necessity entailed by their meager resources;
+it was inspired by the wish for an honest independence in their old age.
+
+There was to be no old age for her.  She took a heavy cold, and almost before
+her husband was aware of her danger, she had left his side.  He was more than
+grief-stricken, he was appalled.  No children had blessed their union, and
+they had become more and more to each other in their simple home life.  To
+many it would have seemed a narrow and even a sordid life.  It could not have
+been the latter, for all their hard work, their petty economies and plans to
+increase the hoard in the savings bank were robbed of sordidness by an honest,
+quiet affection for each other, by mutual sympathy and a common purpose.  It
+undoubtedly was a meager life, which grew narrower with time and habit.  There
+had never been much romance to begin with, but something that often wears
+better--mutual respect and affection.  From the first, James Holcroft had
+entertained the sensible hope that she was just the girl to help him make a
+living from his hillside farm, and he had not hoped for or even thought of
+very much else except the harmony and good comradeship which bless people who
+are suited to each other.  He had been disappointed in no respect; they had
+toiled and gathered like ants; they were confidential partners in the homely
+business and details of the farm; nothing was wasted, not even time.  The
+little farmhouse abounded in comfort, and was a model of neatness and order. 
+If it and its surroundings were devoid of grace and ornament, they were not
+missed, for neither of its occupants had ever been accustomed to such things. 
+The years which passed so uneventfully only cemented the union and increased
+the sense of mutual dependence.  They would have been regarded as exceedingly
+matter-of-fact and undemonstrative, but they were kind to each other and
+understood each other.  Feeling that they were slowly yet surely getting
+ahead, they looked forward to an old age of rest and a sufficiency for their
+simple needs.  Then, before he could realize the truth, he was left alone at
+her wintry grave; neighbors dispersed after the brief service, and he plodded
+back to his desolate home.  There was no relative to step in and partially
+make good his loss.  Some of the nearest residents sent a few cooked
+provisions until he could get help, but these attentions soon ceased.  It was
+believed that he was abundantly able to take care of himself, and he was left
+to do so.  He was not exactly unpopular, but had been much too reticent and
+had lived too secluded a life to find uninvited sympathy now.  He was the last
+man, however, to ask for sympathy or help; and this was not due to
+misanthropy, but simply to temperament and habits of life.  He and his wife
+had been sufficient for each other, and the outside world was excluded chiefly
+because they had not time or taste for social interchanges.  As a result, he
+suffered serious disadvantages; he was misunderstood and virtually left to
+meet his calamity alone.
+
+But, indeed he could scarcely have met it in any other way.  Even to his wife,
+he had never formed the habit of speaking freely of his thoughts and feelings. 
+There had been no need, so complete was the understanding between them.  A
+hint, a sentence, reveled to each other their simple and limited processes of
+thought.  To talk about her now to strangers was impossible.  He had no
+language by which to express the heavy, paralyzing pain in his heart.
+
+For a time he performed necessary duties in a dazed, mechanical way.  The
+horses and live stock were fed regularly, the cows milked; but the milk stood
+in the dairy room until it spoiled.  Then he would sit down at his desolate
+hearth and gaze for hours into the fire, until it sunk down and died out. 
+Perhaps no class in the world suffers from such a terrible sense of loneliness
+as simple-natured country people, to whom a very few have been all the company
+they required.
+
+At last Holcroft partially shook off his stupor, and began the experiment of
+keeping house and maintaining his dairy with hired help.  For a long year he
+had struggled on through all kinds of domestic vicissitude, conscious all the
+time that things were going from bad to worse.  His house was isolated, the
+region sparsely settled, and good help difficult to be obtained under favoring
+auspices.  The few respectable women in the neighborhood who occasionally
+"lent a hand" in other homes than their own would not compromise themselves,
+as they expressed it, by "keepin' house for a widower."  Servants obtained
+from the neighboring town either could not endure the loneliness, or else were
+so wasteful and ignorant that the farmer, in sheer desperation, discharged
+them.  The silent, grief-stricken, rugged-featured man was no company for
+anyone.  The year was but a record of changes, waste, and small pilferings. 
+Although he knew he could not afford it, he tried the device of obtaining two
+women instead of one, so that they might have society in each other; but
+either they would not stay or else he found that he had two thieves to deal
+with instead of one--brazen, incompetent creatures who knew more about whisky
+than milk, and who made his home a terror to him.
+
+Some asked good-naturedly, "Why don't you marry again?"  Not only was the very
+thought repugnant, but he knew well that he was not the man to thrive on any
+such errand to the neighboring farmhouses.  Though apparently he had little
+sentiment in his nature, yet the memory of his wife was like his religion.  He
+felt that he could not put an ordinary woman into his wife's place, and say to
+her the words he had spoken before.  Such a marriage would be to him a
+grotesque farce, at which his soul revolted.
+
+At last he was driven to the necessity of applying for help to an Irish family
+that had recently moved into the neighborhood.  The promise was forbidding,
+indeed, as he entered the squalid abode in which were huddled men, women, and
+children.  A sister of the mistress of the shanty was voluble in her
+assurances of unlimited capability.
+
+"Faix I kin do all the wourk, in doors and out, so I takes the notion," she
+had asserted.
+
+There certainly was no lack of bone and muscle in the big, red-faced,
+middle-aged woman who was so ready to preside at his hearth and glean from his
+diminished dairy a modicum of profit; but as he trudged home along the wintry
+road, he experienced strong feelings of disgust at the thought of such a
+creature sitting by the kitchen fire in the place once occupied by his wife.
+
+During all these domestic vicissitudes he had occupied the parlor, a stiff,
+formal, frigid apartment, which had been rarely used in his married life.  He
+had no inclination for the society of his help; in fact, there had been none
+with whom he could associate.  The better class of those who went out to
+service could find places much more to their taste than the lonely farmhouse. 
+The kitchen had been the one cozy, cheerful room of the house, and, driven
+from it, the farmer was an exile in his own home.  In the parlor he could at
+least brood over the happy past, and that was about all the solace he had
+left.
+
+Bridget came and took possession of her domain with a sangfroid which appalled
+Holcroft from the first.  To his directions and suggestions, she curtly
+informed him that she knew her business and "didn't want no mon around,
+orderin' and interferin'."
+
+In fact, she did appear, as she had said, capable of any amount of work, and
+usually was in a mood to perform it; but soon her male relatives began to drop
+in to smoke a pipe with her in the evening.  A little later on, the supper
+table was left standing for those who were always ready to "take a bite."--The
+farmer had never heard of the camel who first got his head into the tent, but
+it gradually dawned upon him that he was half supporting the whole Irish tribe
+down at the shanty.  Every evening, while he shivered in his best room, he was
+compelled to hear the coarse jests and laughter in the adjacent apartment. 
+One night his bitter thoughts found expression: "I might as well open a free
+house for the keeping of man and beast."
+
+He had endured this state of affairs for some time simply because the woman
+did the essential work in her offhand, slapdash style, and left him unmolested
+to his brooding as long as he did not interfere with her ideas of domestic
+economy.  But his impatience and the sense of being wronged were producing a
+feeling akin to desperation.  Every week there was less and less to sell from
+the dairy; chickens and eggs disappeared, and the appetites of those who
+dropped in to "kape Bridgy from bein' a bit lonely" grew more voracious.
+
+Thus matters had drifted on until this March day when he had taken two calves
+to market.  He had said to the kitchen potentate that he would take supper
+with a friend in town and therefore would not be back before nine in the
+evening.  This friend was the official keeper of the poorhouse and had been a
+crony of Holcroft's in early life.  He had taken to politics instead of
+farming, and now had attained to what he and his acquaintances spoke of as a
+"snug berth."  Holcroft had maintained with this man a friendship based partly
+on business relations, and the well-to-do purveyor for paupers always gave his
+old playmate an honest welcome to his private supper table, which differed
+somewhat from that spread for the town's pensioners.
+
+On this occasion the gathering storm had decided Holcroft to return without
+availing himself of his friend's hospitality, and he is at last entering the
+lane leading from the highway to his doorway.  Even as he approaches his
+dwelling he hears the sound of revelry and readily guesses what is taking
+place.
+
+Quiet, patient men, when goaded beyond a certain point, are capable of
+terrible ebullitions of anger, and Holcroft was no exception.  It seemed to
+him that night that the God he had worshiped all his life was in league with
+man against him.  The blood rushed to his face, his chilled form became rigid
+with a sudden passionate protest against his misfortunes and wrongs. 
+Springing from the wagon, he left his team standing at the barn door and
+rushed to the kitchen window.  There before him sat the whole tribe from the
+shanty, feasting at his expense.  The table was loaded with coarse profusion. 
+Roast fowls alternated with fried ham and eggs, a great pitcher of milk was
+flanked by one of foaming cider, while the post of honor was occupied by the
+one contribution of his self-invited guests--a villainous-looking jug.
+
+They had just sat down to the repast when the weazen-faced patriarch of the
+tribe remarked, by way of grace, it may be supposed, "Be jabers, but isn't
+ould Holcroft givin' us a foine spread the noight!  Here's bad luck to the
+glowerin' ould skinflint!" and he poured out a bumper from the jug.
+
+The farmer waited to see and hear no more.  Hastening to a parlor window, he
+raised it quietly and clambered in; then taking his rusty shotgun, which he
+kept loaded for the benefit of the vermin that prowled about his hen-roost, he
+burst in upon the startled group.
+
+"Be off!" he shouted. "If you value your lives, get out of that door, and
+never show your faces on my place again.  I'll not be eaten out of house and
+home by a lot of jackals!"
+
+His weapon, his dark, gleaming eyes, and desperate aspect taught the men that
+he was not to be trifled with a moment, and they slunk away.
+
+Bridget began to whine, "Yez wouldn't turn a woman out in the noight and
+storm."
+
+"You are not a woman!" thundered Holcroft, "you are a jackal, too!  Get your
+traps and begone!  I warn the whole lot of you to beware!  I give you this
+chance to get off the premises, and then I shall watch for you all, old and
+young!"
+
+There was something terrible and flame-like in his anger, dismaying the
+cormorants, and they hastened away with such alacrity that Bridget went down
+the lane screaming, "Sthop, I tell yees, and be afther waitin' for me!"
+
+Holcroft hurled the jug after them with words that sounded like an
+imprecation.  He next turned to the viands on the table with an expression of
+loathing, gathered them up, and carried them to the hog pen.  He seemed
+possessed by a feverish impatience to banish every vestige of those whom he
+had driven forth, and to restore the apartment as nearly as possible to the
+aspect it had worn in former happy years.  At last, he sat down where his wife
+had been accustomed to sit, unbuttoned his waistcoat and flannel shirt, and
+from against his naked breast took an old, worn daguerreotype.  He looked a
+moment at the plain, good face reflected there, them, bowing his head upon it,
+strong, convulsive sobs shook his frame, though not a tear moistened his eyes.
+
+How long the paroxysm would have lasted it were hard to say, had not the
+impatient whinnying of his horses, still exposed to the storm, caught his
+attention.  The lifelong habit of caring for the dumb animals in his charge
+asserted itself.  He went out mechanically, unharnessed and stabled them as
+carefully as ever before in his life, then returned and wearily prepared
+himself a pot of coffee, which, with a crust of bread, was all the supper he
+appeared to crave.
+
+
+Chapter II. A Very Interested Friend
+
+For the next few days, Holcroft lived alone.  The weather remained inclement
+and there was no occasion for him to go farther away than the barn and
+outbuildings.  He felt that a crisis in his life was approaching, that he
+would probably be compelled to sell his property for what it would bring, and
+begin life again under different auspices.
+
+"I must either sell or marry," he groaned, "and one's about as hard and bad as
+the other.  Who'll buy the place and stock at half what they're worth, and
+where could I find a woman that would look at an old fellow like me, even if I
+could bring myself to look at her?"
+
+The poor man did indeed feel that he was shut up to dreadful alternatives. 
+With his ignorance of the world, and dislike for contact with strangers,
+selling out and going away was virtually starting out on an unknown sea
+without rudder or compass.  It was worse than that--it was the tearing up of a
+life that had rooted itself in the soil whereon he had been content from
+childhood to middle age.  He would suffer more in going, and in the memory of
+what he had parted with, than in any of the vicissitudes which might overtake
+him.  He had not much range of imagination or feeling, but within his
+limitations his emotions were strong and his convictions unwavering.  Still,
+he thought it might be possible to live in some vague, unknown place, doing
+some kind of work for people with whom he need not have very much to do. 
+"I've always been my own master, and done things in my own way," he muttered,
+"but I suppose I could farm it to suit some old, quiet people, if I could only
+find 'em.  One thing is certain, anyhow--I couldn't stay here in Oakville, and
+see another man living in these rooms, and plowing my fields, and driving his
+cows to my old pasture lots.  That would finish me like a galloping
+consumption."
+
+Every day he shrunk with a strange dread from the wrench of parting with the
+familiar place and with all that he associated with his wife.  This was really
+the ordeal which shook his soul, and not the fear that he would be unable to
+earn his bread elsewhere.  The unstable multitude, who are forever fancying
+that they would be better off somewhere else or at something else, can have no
+comprehension of this deep-rooted love of locality and the binding power of
+long association.  They regard such men as Holcroft as little better than
+plodding oxen.  The highest tribute which some people can pay to a man,
+however, is to show that they do not and cannot understand him.  But the
+farmer was quite indifferent whether he was understood or not.  He gave no
+thought to what people said or might say.  What were people to him?  He only
+had a hunted, pathetic sense of being hedged in and driven to bay.  Even to
+his neighbors, there was more of the humorous than the tragic in his plight. 
+It was supposed that he had a goodly sum in the bank, and gossips said that he
+and his wife thought more of increasing this hoard than of each other, and
+that old Holcroft's mourning was chiefly for a business partner.  His domestic
+tribulations evoked mirth rather than sympathy; and as the news spread from
+farmhouse to cottage of his summary bundling of Bridget and her satellites out
+of doors, there were both hilarity and satisfaction.
+
+While there was little commiseration for the farmer, there was decided
+disapprobation of the dishonest Irish tribe, and all were glad that the gang
+had received a lesson which might restrain them from preying upon others.
+
+Holcroft was partly to blame for his present isolation.  Remote rural
+populations are given to strong prejudices, especially against those who are
+thought to be well-off from an oversaving spirit; and who, worse still, are
+unsocial.  Almost anything will be forgiven sooner than "thinking one's self
+better than the other folks;" and that is the usual interpretation of shy,
+reticent people.  But there had been a decided tinge of selfishness in the
+Holcrofts' habit of seclusion; for it became a habit rather than a principle. 
+While they cherished no active dislike to their neighbors, or sense of
+superiority, these were not wholly astray in believing that they had little
+place in the thoughts or interests of the occupants of the hill farm. 
+Indifference begat indifference, and now the lonely, helpless man had neither
+the power nor the disposition to bridge the chasm which separated him from
+those who might have given him kindly and intelligent aid.  He was making a
+pathetic effort to keep his home and to prevent his heart from being torn
+bleeding away from all it loved.  His neighbors thought that he was merely
+exerting himself to keep the dollars which it had been the supreme motive of
+his life to accumulate.
+
+Giving no thought to the opinions of others, Holcroft only knew that he was in
+sore straits--that all which made his existence a blessing was at stake.
+
+At times, during these lonely and stormy March days, he would dismiss his
+anxious speculations in regard to his future course.  He was so morbid,
+especially at night, that he felt that his wife could revisit the quiet house. 
+He cherished the hope that she could see him and hear what he said, and he
+spoke in her viewless presence with a freedom and fullness that was unlike his
+old reticence and habit of repression.  He wondered that he had not said more
+endearing words and given her stronger assurance of how much she was to him. 
+Late at night, he would start out of a long reverie, take a candle, and, going
+through the house, would touch what she had touched, and look long and fixedly
+at things associated with her.  Her gowns still hung in the closet, just as
+she had left them; he would take them out and recall the well-remembered
+scenes and occasions when they were worn.  At such times, she almost seemed
+beside him, and he had a consciousness  of companionship which soothed his
+perturbed spirit.  He felt that she appreciated such loving remembrance,
+although unable to express her approval.  He did not know it, but his nature
+was being softened, deepened, and enriched by these deep and unwonted
+experiences; the hard materiality of his life was passing away, rendering him
+capable of something better than he had ever known.
+
+In the morning all the old, prosaic problems of his life would return, with
+their hard, practical insistence, and he knew that he must decide upon
+something very soon.  His lonely vigils and days of quiet had brought him to
+the conclusion that he could not hunt up a wife as a matter of business.  He
+would rather face the "ever angry bears" than breathe the subject of matrimony
+to any woman that he could ever imagine himself marrying.  He was therefore
+steadily drifting toward the necessity of selling everything and going away. 
+This event, however, was like a coral reef to a sailor, with no land in view
+beyond it.  The only thing which seemed certain was the general breaking up of
+all that had hitherto made his life.
+
+The offer of help came from an unexpected source.  One morning Holcroft
+received a call from a neighbor who had never before shown any interest in his
+affairs.  On this occasion, however, Mr. Weeks began to display so much
+solicitude that the farmer was not only surprised, but also a little
+distrustful.  Nothing in his previous knowledge of the man had prepared the
+way for such very kindly intervention.
+
+After some general references to the past, Mr. Weeks continued, "I've been
+saying to our folks that it was too bad to let you worry on alone without more
+neighborly help.  You ought either to get married or have some thoroughly
+respectable and well-known middle-aged woman keep house for you.  That would
+stop all talk, and there's been a heap of it, I can tell you.  Of course, I
+and my folks don't believe anything's been wrong."
+
+"Believing that something was wrong is about all the attention my neighbors
+have given me, as far as I can see," Holcroft remarked bitterly.
+
+"Well, you see, Holcroft, you've kept yourself so inside your shell that
+people don't know what to believe.  Now, the thing to do is to change all
+that.  I know how hard it is for a man, placed as you be, to get decent help. 
+My wife was a-wondering about it the other day, and I shut her up mighty
+sudden by saying, 'You're a good manager, and know all the country side, yet
+how often you're a-complaining that you can't get a girl that's worth her salt
+to help in haying and other busy times when we have to board a lot of men.' 
+Well, I won't beat around the bush any more.  I've come to act the part of a
+good neighbor.  There's no use of you're trying to get along with such
+haphazard help as you can pick up here and in town.  You want a respectable
+woman for housekeeper, and then have a cheap, common sort of a girl to work
+under her.  Now, I know of just such a woman, and it's not unlikely she'd be
+persuaded to take entire charge of your house and dairy.  My wife's cousin,
+Mrs. Mumpson--" At the mention of this name Holcroft gave a slight start,
+feeling something like a cold chill run down his back.
+
+Mr. Weeks was a little disconcerted but resumed, "I believe she called on your
+wife once?"
+
+"Yes," the farmer replied laconically. "I was away and did not see her."
+
+"Well, now," pursued Mr. Weeks, "she's a good soul.  She has her little
+peculiarities; so have you and me, a lot of 'em; but she's thoroughly
+respectable, and there isn't a man or woman in the town that would think of
+saying a word against her.  She has only one child, a nice, quiet little girl
+who'd be company for her mother and make everything look right, you know."
+
+"I don't see what there's been to look wrong," growled the farmer.
+
+"Nothing to me and my folks, of course, or I wouldn't suggest the idea of a
+relation of my wife coming to live with you.  But you see people will talk
+unless you stop their mouths so they'll feel like fools in doing it.  I know
+yours has been a mighty awkward case, and here's a plain way out of it.  You
+can set yourself right and have everything looked after as it ought to be, in
+twenty-four hours.  We've talked to Cynthy--that's Mrs. Mumpson--and she takes
+a sight of interest.  She'd do well by you and straighten things out, and you
+might do a plaguey sight worse than give her the right to take care of your
+indoor affairs for life."
+
+"I don't expect to marry again," said Holcroft curtly.
+
+"Oh, well!  Many a man and woman has said that and believed it, too, at the
+time.  I'm not saying that my wife's cousin is inclined that way herself. 
+Like enough, she isn't at all, but then, the right kind of persuading does
+change women's minds sometimes, eh?  Mrs. Mumpson is kinder alone in the
+world, like yourself, and if she was sure of a good home and a kind husband
+there's no telling what good luck might happen to you.  But there'll be plenty
+of time for considering all that on both sides.  You can't live like a
+hermit."
+
+"I was thinking of selling out and leaving these parts," Holcroft interrupted.
+
+"Now look here, neighbor, you know as well as I do that in these times you
+couldn't give away the place.  What's the use of such foolishness?  The thing
+to do is to keep the farm and get a good living out of it.  You've got down in
+the dumps and can't see what's sensible and to your own advantage."
+
+Holcroft was thinking deeply, and he turned his eyes wistfully to the upland
+slopes of his farm.  Mr. Weeks had talked plausibly, and if all had been as he
+represented, the plan would not have been a bad one.  But the widower did not
+yearn for the widow.  He did not know much about her, but had very unfavorable
+impressions.  Mrs. Holcroft had not been given to speaking ill of anyone, but
+she had always shaken her head with a peculiar significance when Mrs.
+Mumpson's name was mentioned.
+
+The widow had felt it her duty to call and counsel against the sin of
+seclusion and being too much absorbed in the affairs of this world.
+
+"You should take an interest in everyone," this self-appointed evangelist had
+declared, and in one sense she lived up to her creed.  She permitted no scrap
+of information about people to escape her, and was not only versed in all the
+gossip of Oakville, but also of several other localities in which she visited.
+
+But Holcroft had little else to deter him from employing her services beyond
+an unfavorable impression.  She could not be so bad as Bridget Malony, and he
+was almost willing to employ her again for the privilege of remaining on his
+paternal acres.  As to marrying the widow--a slight shudder passed through his
+frame at the thought.
+
+Slowly he began, as if almost thinking aloud, "I suppose you are right, Lemuel
+Weeks, in what you say about selling the place.  The Lord knows I don't want
+to leave it.  I was born and brought up here, and that counts with some
+people.  If your wife's cousin is willing to come and help me make a living,
+for such wages as I can pay, the arrangement might be made.  But I want to
+look on it as a business arrangement.  I have quiet ways of my own, and things
+belonging to the past to think about, and I've got a right to think about 'em. 
+I aint one of the marrying kind, and I don't want people to be a-considering
+such notions when I don't.  I'd be kind and all that to her and her little
+girl, but I should want to be left to myself as far as I could be."
+
+"Oh, certainly," said Mr. Weeks, mentally chuckling over the slight prospect
+of such immunity, "but you must remember that Mrs. Mumpson isn't like common
+help--"
+
+"That's where the trouble will come in," ejaculated the perplexed farmer, "but
+there's been trouble enough with the other sort."
+
+"I should say so," Mr. Weeks remarked emphatically. "It would be a pity if you
+couldn't get along with such a respectable, conscientious woman as Mrs.
+Mumpson, who comes from one of the best families in the country."
+
+Holcroft removed his hat and passed his hand over his brow wearily as he said,
+"Oh, I could get along with anyone who would do the work in a way that would
+give me a chance to make a little, and then leave me to myself."
+
+"Well, well," said Mr. Weeks, laughing, "you needn't think that because I've
+hinted at a good match for you I'm making one for my wife's cousin.  You may
+see the day when you'll be more hot for it than she is.  All I'm, trying to do
+is to help you keep your place, and live like a man ought and stop people's
+mouths."
+
+"If I could only fill my own and live in peace, it's all I ask.  When I get to
+plowing and planting again I'll begin to take some comfort."
+
+These words were quoted against Holcroft, far and near. "Filling his own mouth
+and making a little money are all he cares for," was the general verdict.  And
+thus people are misunderstood.  The farmer had never turned anyone hungry from
+his door, and he would have gone to the poorhouse rather than have acted the
+part of the man who misrepresented him.  He had only meant to express the hope
+that he might be able to fill his mouth--earn his bread, and get it from his
+native soil. "Plowing and planting"--working where he had toiled since a
+child---would be a solace in itself, and not a grudged means to a sordid end.
+
+Mr. Weeks was a thrifty man also, and in nothing was he more economical than
+in charitable views of his neighbors' motives and conduct.  He drove homeward
+with the complacent feeling that he had done a shrewd, good thing for himself
+and "his folks" at least.  His wife's cousin was not exactly embraced in the
+latter category, although he had been so active in her behalf.  The fact was,
+he would be at much greater pains could he attach her to Holcroft or anyone
+else and so prevent further periodical visits.
+
+He regarded her and her child as barnacles with such appalling adhesive powers
+that even his ingenuity at "crowding out" had been baffled.  In justice to
+him, it must be admitted that Mrs. Mumpson was a type of the poor relation
+that would tax the long suffering of charity itself.  Her husband had left her
+scarcely his blessing, and if he had fled to ills he knew not of, he believed
+that he was escaping from some of which he had a painfully distinct
+consciousness.  His widow was one of the people who regard the "world as their
+oyster," and her scheme of life was to get as much as possible for nothing. 
+Arrayed in mourning weeds, she had begun a system of periodical descents upon
+his relatives and her own.  She might have made such visitations endurable and
+even welcome, but she was not shrewd enough to be sensible.  She appeared to
+have developed only the capacity to talk, to pry, and to worry people.  She
+was unable to rest or to permit others to rest, yet her aversion to any useful
+form of activity was her chief characteristic.  Wherever she went she took the
+ground that she was "company," and with a shawl hanging over her sharp,
+angular shoulders, she would seize upon the most comfortable rocking chair in
+the house, and mouse for bits of news about everyone of whom she had ever
+heard.  She was quite as ready to tell all she knew also, and for the sake of
+her budget of gossip and small scandal, her female relatives tolerated her
+after a fashion for a time; but she had been around so often, and her scheme
+of obtaining subsistence for herself and child had become so offensively
+apparent, that she had about exhausted the patience of all the kith and kin on
+whom she had the remotest claim.  Her presence was all the more unwelcome by
+reason of the faculty for irritating the men of the various households which
+she invaded.  Even the most phlegmatic or the best-natured lost their
+self-control, and as their wives declared, "felt like flying all to pieces" at
+her incessant rocking, gossiping, questioning, and, what was worse still,
+lecturing.  Not the least endurable thing about Mrs. Mumpson was her peculiar
+phase of piety.  She saw the delinquencies and duties of others with such
+painful distinctness that she felt compelled to speak of them; and her zeal
+was sure to be instant out of season.
+
+When Mr. Weeks had started on his ominous mission to Holcroft his wife
+remarked to her daughter confidentially, "I declare, sis, if we don't get rid
+of Cynthy soon, I believe Lemuel will fly off the handle."
+
+To avoid any such dire catastrophe, it was hoped and almost prayed in the
+Weeks household that the lonely occupant of the hill farm would take the widow
+for good and all.
+
+
+Chapter III. Mrs. Mumpson Negotiates and Yields
+
+Mr. Weeks, on his return home, dropped all diplomacy in dealing with the
+question at issue. "Cynthy," he said in his own vernacular, "the end has come,
+so far as me and my folks are concerned--I never expect to visit you, and
+while I'm master of the house, no more visits will be received.  But I haint
+taken any such stand onconsiderately," he concluded. "I've given up the whole
+forenoon to secure you a better chance of living than visiting around.  If you
+go to Holcroft's you'll have to do some work, and so will your girl.  But
+he'll hire someone to help you, and so you won't have to hurt yourself.  Your
+trump card will be to hook him and marry him before he finds you out.  To do
+this, you'll have to see to the house and dairy, and bestir yourself for a
+time at least.  He's pretty desperate off for lack of women folks to look
+after indoor matters, but he'll sell out and clear out before he'll keep a
+woman, much less marry her, if she does nothing but talk.  Now remember,
+you've got a chance which you won't get again, for Holcroft not only owns his
+farm, but has a snug sum in the bank.  So you had better get your things
+together, and go right over while he's in the mood."
+
+When Mrs. Mumpson reached the blank wall of the inevitable, she yielded, and
+not before.  She saw that the Weeks mine was worked out completely, and she
+knew that this exhaustion was about equally true of all similar mines, which
+had been bored until they would yield no further returns.
+
+But Mr. Weeks soon found that he could not carry out his summary measures. 
+The widow was bent on negotiations and binding agreements.  In a stiff,
+cramped hand, she wrote to Holcroft in regard to the amount of "salary" he
+would be willing to pay, intimating that one burdened with such
+responsibilities as she was expected to assume "ort to be compensiated
+proposhundly."
+
+Weeks groaned as he dispatched his son on horseback with this first epistle,
+and Holcroft groaned as he read it, not on account of its marvelous spelling
+and construction, but by reason of the vista of perplexities and trouble it
+opened to his boding mind.  But he named on half a sheet of paper as large a
+sum as he felt it possible to pay and leave any chance for himself, then
+affixed his signature and sent it back by the messenger.
+
+The widow Mumpson wished to talk over this first point between the high
+contracting powers indefinitely, but Mr. Weeks remarked cynically, "It's
+double what I thought he'd offer, and you're lucky to have it in black and
+white.  Now that everything's settled, Timothy will hitch up and take you and
+Jane up there at once.
+
+But Mrs. Mumpson now began to insist upon writing another letter in regard to
+her domestic status and that of her child.  They could not think of being
+looked upon as servants.  She also wished to be assured that a girl would be
+hired to help her, that she should have all the church privileges to which she
+had been accustomed and the right to visit and entertain her friends, which
+meant every farmer's wife and all the maiden sisters in Oakville. "And then,"
+she continued, "there are always little perquisites which a housekeeper has a
+right to look for--"  Mr. Weeks irritably put a period to this phase of
+diplomacy by saying, "Well, well, Cynthy, the stage will be along in a couple
+of hours.  We'll put you and your things aboard, and you can go on with what
+you call your negotiations at Cousin Abiram's.  I can tell you one thing
+though--if you write any such letter to Holcroft, you'll never hear from him
+again."
+
+Compelled to give up all these preliminaries, but inwardly resolving to gain
+each point by a nagging persistence of which she was a mistress, she finally
+declared that she "must have writings about one thing which couldn't be left
+to any man's changeful mind.  He must agree to give me the monthly salary he
+names for at least a year."
+
+Weeks thought a moment, and then, with a shrewd twinkle in his eyes, admitted,
+"It would be a good thing to have Holcroft's name to such an agreement.  Yes,
+you might try that on, but you're taking a risk.  If you were not so
+penny-wise and pound-foolish, you'd go at once and manage to get him to take
+you for 'better or worse.'"
+
+"You--misjudge me, Cousin Lemuel," replied the widow, bridling and rocking
+violently.  If there's any such taking to be done, he must get me to take
+him."
+
+"Well, well, write your letter about a year's engagement.  That'll settle you
+for a twelvemonth, at least."
+
+Mrs. Mumpson again began the slow, laborious construction of a letter in which
+she dwelt upon the uncertainties of life, her "duty to her offspring," and the
+evils of "vicissitude." "A stable home is woman's chief desire," she
+concluded, "and you will surely agree to pay me the salary you have said for a
+year."
+
+When Holcroft read this second epistle he so far yielded to his first impulse
+that he half tore the sheet, then paused irresolutely.  After a few moments he
+went to the door and looked out upon his acres. "It'll soon be plowing and
+planting time," he thought.  "I guess I can stand her---at least I can try it
+for three months.  I'd like to turn a few more furrows on the old place," and
+his face softened and grew wistful as he looked at the bare, frost-bound
+fields.  Suddenly it darkened and grew stern as he muttered, "But I'll put my
+hand to no more paper with that Weeks tribe."
+
+He strode to the stable, saying to Timothy Weeks, as he passed, "I'll answer
+this letter in person."
+
+Away cantered Timothy, and soon caused a flutter of expectancy in the Weeks
+household, by announcing that "Old Holcroft looked black as a thundercloud and
+was comin' himself."
+
+"I tell you what 'tis, Cynthy, it's the turn of a hair with you now," growled
+Weeks. "Unless you agree to whatever Holcroft says, you haven't the ghost of a
+chance."
+
+The widow felt that a crisis had indeed come.  Cousin Abiram's was the next
+place in the order of visitation, but her last experience there left her in
+painful doubt as to a future reception.  Therefore she tied on a new cap,
+smoothed her apron, and rocked with unwonted rapidity. "It'll be according to
+the ordering of Providence--"
+
+"Oh, pshaw!" interrupted Cousin Lemuel, "it'll be according to whether you've
+got any sense or not."
+
+Mrs. Weeks had been in a pitiable state of mind all day.  She saw that her
+husband had reached the limit of his endurance--that he had virtually already
+"flown off the handle."  But to have her own kin actually bundled out of the
+house--what would people say?
+
+Acceptance of Holcroft's terms, whatever they might be, was the only way out
+of the awkward predicament, and so she began in a wheedling tone, "Now, Cousin
+Cynthy, as Lemuel says, you've got a first-rate chance.  Holcroft's had an
+awful time with women, and he'll be glad enough to do well by anyone who does
+fairly well by him.  Everybody says he's well off, and once you're fairly
+there and get things in your own hands, there's no telling what may happen. 
+He'll get a girl to help you, and Jane's big enough now to do a good deal. 
+Why, you'll be the same as keeping house like the rest of us."
+
+Further discussion was cut short by the arrival of the victim.  He stood
+awkwardly in the door of the Weeks sitting room for a moment, seemingly at a
+loss how to state his case.
+
+Mr. And Mrs. Weeks now resolved to appear neutral and allow the farmer to make
+his terms.  Then, like other superior powers in the background, they proposed
+to exert a pressure on their relative and do a little coercing.  But the
+widow's course promised at first to relieve them of all further effort.  She
+suddenly seemed to become aware of Holcroft's presence, sprang up, and gave
+him her hand very cordially.
+
+"I'm glad to see you, sir," she began. "It's very considerate of you to come
+for me.  I can get ready in short order, and as for Jane, she's never a bit of
+trouble.  Sit down, sir, and make yourself to home while I get our things
+together and put on my bonnet;" and she was about to hasten from the room.
+
+She, too, had been compelled to see that Holcroft's farmhouse was the only
+certain refuge left, and while she had rocked and waited the thought had come
+into her scheming mind, "I've stipulated to stay a year, and if he says
+nothing against it, it's a bargain which I can manage to keep him to in spite
+of himself, even if I don't marry him."
+
+But the straightforward farmer was not to be caught in such a trap.  He had
+come himself to say certain words and he would say them.  He quietly,
+therefore, stood in the door and said, "Wait a moment, Mrs. Mumpson.  It's
+best to have a plain understanding in all matters of business.  When I've
+done, you may conclude not to go with me, for I want to say to you what I said
+this morning to your cousin, Lemuel Weeks.  I'm glad he and his wife are now
+present, as witnesses.  I'm a plain man, and all I want is to make a livin'
+off the farm I've been brought up on.  I'll get a girl to help you with the
+work.  Between you, I'll expect it to be done in a way that the dairy will
+yield a fair profit.  We'll try and see how we get on for three months and not
+a year.  I'll not bind myself longer than three months.  Of course, if you
+manage well, I'll be glad to have this plain business arrangement go on as
+long as possible, but it's all a matter of business.  If I can't make  my farm
+pay, I'm going to sell or rent and leave these parts."
+
+"Oh, certainly, certainly, Mr. Holcroft!  You take a very senserble view of
+affairs.  I hope you will find that I will do all that I agree to and a great
+deal more.  I'm a little afraid of the night air and the inclement season, and
+so will hasten to get myself and my child ready," and she passed quickly out.
+
+Weeks put his hand to his mouth to conceal a grin as he thought, "She hasn't
+agreed to do anything that I know on.  Still, she's right; she'll do a sight
+more than he expects, but it won't be just what he expects."
+
+Mrs. Weeks followed her relative to expedite matters, and it must be confessed
+that the gathering of Mrs. Mumpson's belongings was no heavy task.  A small
+hair trunk, that had come down from the remote past, held her own and her
+child's wardrobe and represented all their worldly possessions.
+
+Mr. Weeks, much pleased at the turn of affairs, became very affable, but
+confined his remarks chiefly to the weather, while Holcroft, who had an uneasy
+sense of being overreached in some undetected way, was abstracted and laconic. 
+He was soon on the road home, however, with Mrs. Mumpson and Jane.  Cousin
+Lemuel's last whispered charge was, "Now, for mercy's sake, do keep your
+tongue still and your hands busy."
+
+Whatever possibilities there may be for the Ethiopian or the leopard, there
+was no hope that Mrs. Mumpson would materially change any of her
+characteristics.  The chief reason was that she had no desire to change.  A
+more self-complacent person did not exist in Oakville.  Good traits in other
+people did not interest her.  They were insipid, they lacked a certain
+pungency which a dash of evil imparts; and in the course of her minute
+investigations she had discerned or surmised so much that was reprehensible
+that she had come to regard herself as singularly free from sins of omission
+and commission. "What have I ever done?" she would ask in her self-communings. 
+The question implied so much truth of a certain kind that all her relatives
+were in gall and bitterness as they remembered the weary months during which
+she had rocked idly at their firesides. With her, talking was as much of a
+necessity as breathing; but during the ride to the hillside farm she, in a
+sense, held her breath, for a keen March wind was blowing.
+
+She was so quiet that Holcroft grew hopeful, not realizing that the checked
+flow of words must have freer course later on.  A cloudy twilight was
+deepening fast when they reached the dwelling.  Holcroft's market wagon served
+for the general purposes of conveyance, and he drove as near as possible to
+the kitchen door.  Descending from the front seat, which he had occupied
+alone, he turned and offered his hand to assist the widow to alight, but she
+nervously poised herself on the edge of the vehicle and seemed to be afraid to
+venture.  The wind fluttered her scanty draperies, causing her to appear like
+a bird of prey about to swoop down upon the unprotected man. "I'm afraid to
+jump so far--" she began.
+
+"There's the step, Mrs. Mumpson."
+
+"But I can't see it.  Would you mind lifting me down?"
+
+He impatiently took her by the arms, which seemed in his grasp like the rounds
+of a chair, and put her on the ground.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed, in gushing tones, "there's nothing to equal the strong
+arms of a man."
+
+He hastily lifted out her daughter, and said, "You had getter hurry in to the
+fire.  I'll be back in a few minutes," and he led his horses down to the barn,
+blanketed and tied them.  When he returned, he saw two dusky figures standing
+by the front door which led to the little hall separating the kitchen from the
+parlor.
+
+"Bless me!" he exclaimed. "You haven't been standing here all this time?"
+
+"It's merely due to a little oversight.  The door is locked, you see, and--"
+
+"But the kitchen door is not locked."
+
+"Well, it didn't seem quite natural for us to enter the dwelling, on the
+occasion of our first arrival, by the kitchen entrance, and--"
+
+Holcroft, with a grim look, strode through the kitchen and unlocked the door.
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed the widow. "I feel as if I was coming home.  Enter, Jane, my
+dear.  I'm sure the place will soon cease to be strange to you, for the home
+feeling is rapidly acquired when--"
+
+"Just wait a minute, please," said Holcroft, "and I'll light the lamp and a
+candle."  This he did with the deftness of a man accustomed to help himself,
+then led the way to the upper room which was to be her sleeping apartment. 
+Placing the candle on the bureau, he forestalled Mrs. Mumpson by saying, "I'll
+freshen up the fire in the kitchen and lay out the ham, eggs, coffee, and
+other materials for supper.  Then I must go out and unharness and do my night
+work.  Make yourselves to home.  You'll soon be able to find everything," and
+he hastened away.
+
+It would not be their fault if they were not soon able to find everything. 
+Mrs. Mumpson's first act was to take the candle and survey the room in every
+nook and corner.  She sighed when she found the closet and bureau drawers
+empty.  Then she examined the quantity and texture of the bedding of the
+"couch on which she was to repose," as she would express herself.  Jane
+followed her around on tiptoe, doing just what her mother did, but was silent.
+
+At last they shivered in the fireless apartment, threw off their scanty wraps,
+and went down to the kitchen.  Mrs. Mumpson instinctively looked around for a
+rocking chair, and as none was visible she hastened to the parlor, and,
+holding the candle aloft, surveyed this apartment.  Jane followed in her wake
+as before, but at last ventured to suggest, "Mother, Mr. Holcroft'll be in
+soon and want his supper."
+
+"I suppose he'll want a great many things," replied Mrs. Mumpson with dignity,
+"but he can't expect a lady of my connections to fly around like a common
+servant.  It is but natural, in coming to a new abode, that I should wish to
+know something of that abode.  There should have been a hired girl here ready
+to receive and get supper for us.  Since there is not one to receive us, bring
+that rocking chair, my dear, and I will direct you how to proceed."
+
+The child did as she was told, and her mother was soon rocking on the snuggest
+side of the kitchen stove, interspersing her rather bewildering orders with
+various reflections and surmises.
+
+Sketching the child Jane is a sad task, and pity would lead us to soften every
+touch if this could be done in truthfulness.  She was but twelve years of age,
+yet there was scarcely a trace of childhood left in her colorless face. 
+Stealthy and catlike in all her movements, she gave the impression that she
+could not do the commonest thing except in a sly, cowering manner.  Her small
+greenish-gray eyes appeared to be growing nearer together with the lease of
+time, and their indirect, furtive glances suggested that they had hardly, if
+ever, seen looks of frank affection bent upon her.  She had early learned, on
+the round of visits with her mother, that so far from being welcome she was
+scarcely tolerated, and she reminded one of a stray cat that comes to a
+dwelling and seeks to maintain existence there in a lurking, deprecatory
+manner.  Her kindred recognized this feline trait, for they were accustomed to
+remark, "She's always snoopin' around."
+
+She could scarcely do otherwise, poor child!  There had seemed no place for
+her at any of the firesides.  She haunted halls and passage-ways, sat in dusky
+corners, and kept her meager little form out of sight as much as possible. 
+She was the last one helped at table when she was permitted to come at all,
+and so had early learned to watch, like a cat, and when people's backs were
+turned, to snatch something, carry it off, and devour it in secret.  Detected
+in these little pilferings, to which she was almost driven, she was regarded
+as even a greater nuisance than her mother.
+
+The latter was much too preoccupied to give her child attention.  Ensconced in
+a rocking chair in the best room, and always in full tide of talk if there was
+anyone present, she rarely seemed to think where Jane was or what she was
+doing.  The rounds of visitation gave the child no chance to go to school, so
+her developing mind had little other pabulum than what her mother supplied so
+freely.  She was acquiring the same consuming curiosity, with the redeeming
+feature that she did not talk.  Listening in unsuspected places, she heard
+much that was said about her mother and herself, and the pathetic part of this
+experience was that she had never known enough of kindness to be wounded.  She
+was only made to feel more fully how precarious was her foothold in her
+transient abiding place, and therefore was rendered more furtive, sly, and
+distant in order to secure toleration by keeping out of everyone's way.  In
+her prowlings, however, she managed to learn and understand all that was going
+on even better than her mother, who, becoming aware of this fact, was
+acquiring the habit of putting her through a whispered cross-questioning when
+they retired for the night.  It would be hard to imagine a child beginning
+life under more unfavorable auspices and still harder to predict the outcome.
+
+In the course of her close watchfulness she had observed how many of the
+domestic labors had been performed, and she would have helped more in the
+various households if she had been given a chance; but the housewives had not
+regarded her as sufficiently honest to be trusted in the pantries, and also
+found that, if there was a semblance of return for such hospitality as they
+extended, Mrs. Mumpson would remain indefinitely.  Moreover, the homely,
+silent child made the women nervous, just as her mother irritated the men, and
+they did not want her around.  Thus she had come to be but the specter of a
+child, knowing little of the good in the world and as much of the evil as she
+could understand.
+
+She now displayed, however, more sense than her mother.  The habit of close
+scrutiny had made it clear that Holcroft would not long endure genteel airs
+and inefficiency, and that something must be done to keep this shelter.  She
+did her best to get supper, with the aid given from the rocking chair, and at
+last broke out sharply, "You must get up and help me.  He'll turn us out of
+doors if we don't have supper ready when he comes in."
+
+Spurred by fear of such a dire possibility, Mrs. Mumpson was bustling around
+when Holcroft entered. "We'll soon be ready," she gushed, "we'll soon place
+our evening repast upon the table."
+
+"Very well," was the brief reply, as he passed up the stairs with the small
+hair trunk on his shoulder.
+
+
+Chapter IV. Domestic Bliss
+
+Holcroft had been given a foretaste of the phase of torment which he was
+destined to endure in his domestic relations, and was planning to secure a
+refuge into which he could not be pursued.  He had made himself a little more
+presentable for supper, instinctively aware that nothing would escape the
+lynx-eyed widow, and was taking some measurements from the floor to a
+stovepipe hole leading into the chimney flue, when he became aware that
+someone was in the doorway.  Turning, he saw Jane with her small catlike eyes
+fixed intently upon him.  Instantly he had the feeling that he was being
+watched and would be watched.
+
+"Supper's ready," said the girl, disappearing.
+
+Mrs. Mumpson smiled upon him--if certain contortions of her thin, sharp face
+could be termed a smile--from that side of the table at which his wife had sat
+so many years, and he saw that the low rocking chair, which he had preserved
+jealously from his former "help," had been brought from the parlor and
+established in the old familiar place.  Mrs. Mumpson folded her hands and
+assumed a look of deep solemnity; Jane, as instructed, also lowered her head,
+and they waited for him to say "grace."  He was in far too bitter a mood for
+any such pious farce, and stolidly began to help them to the ham and eggs,
+which viands had been as nearly spoiled as was possible in their preparation. 
+The widow raised her head with a profound sigh which set Holcroft's teeth on
+edge, but he proceeded silently with his supper.  The biscuits were heavy
+enough to burden the lightest conscience; and the coffee, simply grounds
+swimming around in lukewarm water.  He took a sip, then put down his cup and
+said, quietly, "Guess I'll take a glass of milk tonight.  Mrs. Mumpson, if you
+don't know how to make coffee, I can soon show you."
+
+"Why!  Isn't it right?  How strange!  Perhaps it would be well for you to show
+me just exactly how you like it, for it will afford me much pleasure to make
+it to your taste.  Men's tastes differ so!  I've heard that no two men's
+tastes were alike; and, after all, everything is a matter of taste.  Now
+Cousin Abiram doesn't believe in coffee at all.  He thinks it is unwholesome. 
+Have YOU ever thought that it might be unwholesome?"
+
+"I'm used to it, and would like it good when I have it at all."
+
+"Why, of course, of course!  You must have it exactly to your taste.  Jane, my
+dear, we must put our minds on coffee and learn precisely how Mr. Holcroft
+likes it, and when the hired girl comes we must carefully superintend her when
+she makes it.  By the way, I suppose you will employ my assistant tomorrow,
+Mr. Holcroft."
+
+"I can't get a girl short of town," was the reply, "and there is so much cream
+in the dairy that ought to be churned at once that I'll wait till next Monday
+and take down the butter."
+
+Mrs. Mumpson put on a grave, injured air, and said, "Well," so disapprovingly
+that it was virtually saying that it was not well at all.  Then, suddenly
+remembering that this was not good policy, she was soon all smiles and chatter
+again. "How cozy this is!" she cried, "and how soon one acquires the home
+feeling!  Why, anyone looking in at the window would think that we were an old
+established family, and yet this is but our first meal together.  But it won't
+be the last, Mr. Holcroft.  I cannot make it known to you how your loneliness,
+which Cousin Lemuel has so feelingly described to me, has affected my
+feelings.  Cousin Nancy said but this very day that you have had desperate
+times with all kinds of dreadful creatures.  But all that's past.  Jane and me
+will give a look of stability and respecterbility to every comer."
+
+"Well, really, Mrs. Mumpson, I don't know who's to come."
+
+"Oh, you'll see!" she replied, wrinkling her thin, blue lips into what was
+meant for a smile, and nodding her head at him encouragingly. "You won't be so
+isolated no more.  Now that I'm here, with my offspring, your neighbors will
+feel that they can show you their sympathy.  The most respecterble people in
+town will call, and your life will grow brighter and brighter; clouds will
+roll away, and--"
+
+"I hope the neighbors will not be so ill-mannered as to come without being
+invited," remarked Mr. Holcroft grimly. "It's too late in the day for them to
+begin now."
+
+"My being here with Jane will make all the difference in the world," resumed
+Mrs. Mumpson, with as saccharine an expression as she could assume. "They will
+come out of pure kindness and friendly interest, with the wish to encourage--"
+
+"Mrs. Mumpson," said Holcroft, half desperately, "if anyone comes it'll be out
+of pure curiosity, and I don't want such company.  Selling enough butter,
+eggs, and produce to pay expenses will encourage me more than all the people
+of Oakville, if they should come in a body.  What's the use of talking in this
+way?  I've done without the neighbors so far, and I'm sure they've been very
+careful to do without me.  I shall have nothing to do with them except in the
+way of business, and as I said to you down at Lemuel Weeks's, business must be
+the first consideration with us all," and he rose from the table.
+
+"Oh, certainly, certainly!" the widow hastened to say, "but then business is
+like a cloud, and the meetings and greetings of friends is a sort of silver
+lining, you know.  What would the world be without friends--the society of
+those who take an abiding interest?  Believe me, Mr. Holcroft," she continued,
+bringing her long, skinny finger impressively down on the table, "you have
+lived alone so long that you are unable to see the crying needs of your own
+constitution.  As a Christian man, you require human sympathy and--"
+
+Poor Holcroft knew little of centrifugal force; but at that moment he was a
+living embodiment of it, feeling that if he did not escape he would fly into a
+thousand atoms.  Saying nervously, "I've a few chores to do," he seized his
+hat, and hastening out, wandered disconsolately around the barn. "I'm never
+going to be able to stand her," he groaned. "I know now why my poor wife shook
+her head whenever this woman was mentioned.  The clack of her tongue would
+drive any man living crazy, and the gimlet eyes of that girl Jane would bore
+holes through a saint's patience.  Well, well!  I'll put a stove up in my
+room, then plowing and planting time will soon be here, and I guess I can
+stand it at mealtimes for three months, for unless she stops her foolishness
+she shan't stay any longer."
+
+Jane had not spoken during the meal, but kept her eyes on Holcroft, except
+when he looked toward her, and then she instantly averted her gaze.  When she
+was alone with her mother, she said abruptly, "We aint a-goin' to stay here
+long, nuther."
+
+"Why not?" was the sharp, responsive query.
+
+"'Cause the same look's comin' into his face that was in Cousin Lemuel's and
+Cousin Abiram's and all the rest of 'em.  'Fi's you I'd keep still now. 
+'Pears to me they all want you to keep still and you won't."
+
+"Jane," said Mrs. Mumpson in severe tones, "you're an ignorant child.  Don't
+presume to instruct ME!  Besides, this case is entirely different.  Mr.
+Holcroft must be made to understand from the start that I'm not a common
+woman--that I'm his equal, and in most respects his superior.  If he aint made
+to feel this, it'll never enter his head--but law!  There's things which you
+can't and oughtn't to understand."
+
+"But I do," said the girl shortly, "and he won't marry you, nor keep you, if
+you talk him to death."
+
+"Jane!" gasped Mrs. Mumpson, as she sank into the chair and rocked violently.
+
+The night air was keen and soon drove Holcroft into the house.  As he passed
+the kitchen window, he saw that Mrs. Mumpson was in his wife's rocking chair
+and that Jane was clearing up the table.
+
+He kindled a fire on the parlor hearth, hoping, but scarcely expecting, that
+he would be left alone.
+
+Nor was he very long, for the widow soon opened the door and entered, carrying
+the chair. "Oh, you are here," she said sweetly. "I heard the fire crackling,
+and I do so love open wood fires.  They're company in themselves, and they
+make those who bask in the flickering blaze inclined to be sociable.  To think
+of how many long, lonely evenings you have sat here when you had persons in
+your employ with whom you could have no affinity whatever!  I don't see how
+you stood it.  Under such circumstances life must cloud up into a dreary
+burden."  It never occurred to Mrs. Mumpson that her figures of speech were
+often mixed.  She merely felt that the sentimental phase of conversation must
+be very flowery.  But during the first evening she had resolved on prudence.
+"Mr. Holcroft shall have time," she thought, "for the hope to steal into his
+heart that his housekeeper may become something more to him than
+housekeeper--that there is a nearer and loftier relation."
+
+Meanwhile she was consumed with curiosity to know something about the
+"persons" previously employed and his experiences with them.  With a
+momentary, and, as she felt, a proper pause before descending to ordinary
+topics, she resumed, "My dear Mr. Holcroft, no doubt it will be a relief to
+your overfraught mind to pour into a symperthetic ear the story of your
+troubles with those--er--those peculiar females that--er--that--"
+
+"Mrs. Mumpson, it would be a much greater relief to my mind to forget all
+about 'em," he replied briefly.
+
+"INDEED!" exclaimed the widow. "Was they as bad as that?  Who'd 'a' thought
+it!  Well, well, well; what people there is in the world!  And you couldn't
+abide 'em, then?"
+
+"No, I couldn't."
+
+"Well now; what hussies they must have been!  And to think you were here all
+alone, with no better company!  It makes my heart bleed.  They DO say that
+Bridget Malony is equal to anything, and I've no doubt but that she took
+things and did things."
+
+"Well, she's taken herself off, and that's enough."  Then he groaned inwardly,
+"Good Lord!  I could stand her and all her tribe bettern'n this one."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Holcroft," pursued Mrs. Mumpson, sinking her voice to a loud,
+confidential whisper, "and I don't believe you've any idea how much she took
+with her.  I fear you've been robbed in all these vicissitudes.  Men never
+know what's in a house.  They need caretakers; respecterble women, that would
+sooner cut out their tongues than purloin.  How happy is the change which has
+been affected!  How could you abide in the house with such a person as that
+Bridget Malony?"
+
+"Well, well, Mrs. Mumpson!  She abode with herself.  I at least had this room
+in peace and quietness."
+
+"Of course, of course!  A person so utterly unrespecterble would not think of
+entering THIS apartment; but then you had to meet her, you know.  You could
+not act as if she was not, when she was, and there being so much of her, too. 
+She was a monstrous-looking person.  It's dreadful to think that such persons
+belong to our sex.  I don't wonder you feel as you do about it all.  I can
+understand you perfectly.  All your senserbleness was offended.  You felt that
+your very home had become sacrilegious.  Well, now, I suppose she said awful
+things to you?"
+
+Holcroft could not endure this style of inquisition and comment another second
+longer.  He rose and said, "Mrs. Mumpson, if you want to know just what she
+said and did, you must go and ask her. I'm very tired.  I'll go out and see
+that the stock's all right, and then go to bed."
+
+"Oh, certainly, certainly!" ejaculated the widow. "Repose is nature's sweet
+rester, says the poet.  I can see how recalling those dreadful scenes with
+those peculiar females--" But he was gone.
+
+In passing out, he caught sight of Jane whisking back into the kitchen. "She's
+been listening," he thought. "Well, I'll go to town tomorrow afternoon, get a
+stove for my room upstairs, and stuff the keyhole."
+
+He went to the barn and looked with envy at the placid cows and quiet horses. 
+At last, having lingered as long as he could, he returned to the kitchen. 
+Jane had washed and put away the supper dishes after a fashion, and was now
+sitting on the edge of a chair in the farthest corner of the room.
+
+"Take this candle and go to your mother," he said curtly.  Then he fastened
+the doors and put out the lamp.  Standing for an instant at the parlor
+entrance, he added,  "Please rake up the fire and put out the light before you
+come up.  Good night."
+
+"Oh, certainly, certainly! We'll look after everything just as if it was our
+own.  The sense of strangeness will soon pass--" But his steps were halfway up
+the stairs.
+
+Mother and daughter listened until they heard him overhead, then, taking the
+candle, they began a most minute examination of everything in the room.
+
+Poor Holcroft listened also; too worried, anxious, and nervous to sleep until
+they came up and all sounds ceased in the adjoining apartment.
+
+
+Chapter V. Mrs. Mumpson Takes Up Her Burdens
+
+The next morning Holcroft awoke early.  The rising sun flooded his plain
+little room with mellow light.  It was impossible to give way to dejection in
+that radiance, and hope, he scarcely knew why, sprung up in his heart.  He was
+soon dressed, and having kindled the kitchen fire, went out on the porch. 
+There had been a change in the wind during the night, and now it blew softly
+from the south.  The air was sweet with the indefinable fragrance of spring. 
+The ethereal notes of bluebirds were heard on every side.  Migratory robins
+were feeding in the orchard, whistling and calling their noisy congratulations
+on arriving at old haunts.  The frost was already oozing from the ground, but
+the farmer welcomed the mud, knowing that it indicated a long advance toward
+plowing and planting time.
+
+He bared his head to the sweet, warm air and took long, deep breaths. "If this
+weather holds," he muttered, "I can soon put in some early potatoes on that
+warm hillside yonder.  Yes, I can stand even her for the sake of being on the
+old place in mornings like this.  The weather'll be getting better every day
+and I can be out of doors more.  I'll have a stove in my room tonight; I would
+last night if the old air-tight hadn't given out completely.  I'll take it to
+town this afternoon and sell it for old iron.  Then I'll get a bran'-new one
+and put it up in my room.  They can't follow me there and they can't follow me
+outdoors, and so perhaps I can live in peace and work most of the time."
+
+Thus he was muttering to himself, as lonely people so often do, when he felt
+that someone was near.  Turning suddenly, he saw Jane half-hidden by the
+kitchen door.  Finding herself observed, the girl came forward and said in her
+brief monotonous way:
+
+"Mother'll be down soon.  If you'll show me how you want the coffee and
+things, I guess I can learn."
+
+"I guess you'll have to, Jane.  There'll be more chance of your teaching your
+mother than of her teaching you, I fear.  But we'll see, we'll see; it's
+strange people can't see what's sensible and best for 'em when they see so
+much."
+
+The child made no reply, but watched him intently as he measured out and then
+ground half a cup of coffee.
+
+"The firs thing to do," he began kindly, "is to fill the kettle with water
+fresh drawn from the well.  Never make coffee or tea with water that's been
+boiled two or three times.  Now, I'll give the kettle a good rinsing, so as to
+make sure you start with it clean."
+
+Having accomplished this, he filled the vessel at the well and placed it on
+the fire, remarking as he did so, "Your mother can cook a little, can't she?"
+
+"I s'pose so," Jane replied. "When father was livin' mother said she kept a
+girl.  Since then, we've visited round.  But she'll learn, and if she can't, I
+can."
+
+"What on earth--but there's no use of talking.  When the water boils--bubbles
+up and down, you know--call me.  I suppose you and your mother can get the
+rest of the breakfast?  Oh, good morning, Mrs. Mumpson!  I was just showing
+Jane about the coffee.  You two can go on and do all the rest, but don't touch
+the coffee till the kettle boils, and then I'll come in and show you my way,
+and, if you please, I don't wish it any other way."
+
+"Oh, certainly, certainly!" began Mrs. Mumpson, but Holcroft waited to hear no
+more.
+
+"She's a woman," he muttered, "and I'll say nothing rude or ugly to her, but I
+shan't listen to her talk half a minute when I can help myself; and if she
+won't do any thing but talk--well, we'll see, we'll see!  A few hours in the
+dairy will show whether she can use anything besides her tongue."
+
+As soon as they were alone Jane turned sharply on her mother and said, "Now
+you've got to do something to help.  At Cousin Lemuel's and other places they
+wouldn't let us help.  Anyhow, they wouldn't let me.  He 'spects us both to
+work, and pays you for it.  I tell you agin, he won't let us stay here unless
+we do. I won't go visitin' round any more, feelin' like a stray cat in every
+house I go to.  You've got to work, and talk less."
+
+"Why, Jane!  How YOU talk!"
+
+"I talk sense.  Come, help me get breakfast."
+
+"Do you think that's a proper way for a child to address a parent?"
+
+"No matter what I think.  Come and help.  You'll soon know what he thinks if
+we keep breakfast waitin'."
+
+"Well, I'll do such menial work until he gets a girl, and then he shall learn
+that he can't expect one with such respecterble connections--"
+
+"Hope I may never see any of 'em agin," interrupted Jane shortly, and then she
+relapsed into silence while her mother rambled on in her characteristic way,
+making singularly inapt efforts to assist in the task before them.
+
+As Holcroft rose from milking a cow he found Jane beside him.  A ghost could
+not have come more silently, and again her stealthy ways gave him an
+unpleasant sensation. "Kettle is boilin'," she said, and was gone.
+
+He shook his head and muttered, "Queer tribe, these Mumpsons!  I've only to
+get an odd fish of a girl to help, and I'll have something like a menagerie in
+the house."  He carried his pails of foaming milk to the dairy, and then
+entered the kitchen.
+
+"I've only a minute," he began hastily, seeking to forestall the widow. "Yes,
+the kettle's boiling all right.  First scald out the coffeepot--put
+three-quarters of a cup of ground coffee into the pot, break an egg into it,
+so; pour on the egg and coffee half a cup of cold water and stir it all up
+well, this way.  Next pour in about a pint of boiling water from the kettle,
+set the pot on the stove and let it--the coffee, I mean--cook twenty minutes,
+remember, not less than twenty minutes.  I'll be back to breakfast by that
+time.  Now you know just how I want my coffee, don't you?" looking at Jane.
+
+Jane nodded, but Mrs. Mumpson began, "Oh certainly, certainly!  Boil an egg
+twenty minutes, add half a cup of cold water, and--"
+
+"I know," interrupted Jane, "I can always do as you did."
+
+Holcroft again escaped to the barn, and eventually returned with a deep sigh.
+"I'll have to face a good deal of her music this morning," he thought, "but I
+shall have at least a good cup of coffee to brace me."
+
+Mrs. Mumpson did not abandon the suggestion that grace should be said,--she
+never abandoned anything,--but the farmer, in accordance with his purpose to
+be civil, yet pay no attention to her obtrusive ways, gave no heed to her
+hint.  He thought Jane looked apprehensive, and soon learned the reason.  His
+coffee was at least hot, but seemed exceedingly weak.
+
+"I hope now that it's just right," said Mrs. Mumpson complacently, "and
+feeling sure that it was made just to suit you, I filled the coffeepot full
+from the kettle.  We can drink what we desire for breakfast and then the rest
+can be set aside until dinner time and warmed over.  Then you'll have it just
+to suit you for the next meal, and we, at the same time, will be practicing
+econermy.  It shall now be my great aim to help you econermize.  Any coarse,
+menial hands can work, but the great thing to be considered is a caretaker;
+one who, by thoughtfulness and the employment of her mind, will make the labor
+of others affective."
+
+During this speech, Holcroft could only stare at the woman.  The rapid motion
+of her thin jaw seemed to fascinate him, and he was in perplexity over not
+merely her rapid utterance, but also the queries. Had she maliciously spoiled
+the coffee?  Or didn't she know any better?  "I can't make her out," he
+thought, "but she shall learn that I have a will of my own," and he quietly
+rose, took the coffeepot, and poured its contents out of doors; then went
+through the whole process of making his favorite beverage again, saying
+coldly, "Jane, you had better watch close this time.  I don't wish anyone to
+touch the coffeepot but you."
+
+Even Mrs. Mumpson was a little abashed by his manner, but when he resumed his
+breakfast she speedily recovered her complacency and volubility. "I've always
+heard," she said, with her little cackling laugh, "that men would be
+extravergant, especially in some things.  There are some things they're
+fidgety about and will have just so.  Well, well, who has a better right than
+a well-to-do, fore-handed man?  Woman is to complement the man, and it should
+be her aim to study the great--the great--shall we say reason, for her being? 
+Which is adaptation," and she uttered the word with feeling, assured that
+Holcroft could not fail of being impressed by it.  The poor man was bolting
+such food as had been prepared in his haste to get away.
+
+"Yes," continued the widow, "adaptation is woman's mission and--"
+
+"Really, Mrs. Mumpson, your and Jane's mission this morning will be to get as
+much butter as possible out of the cream and milk on hand.  I'll set the old
+dog on the wheel, and start the churn within half an hour," and he rose with
+the thought, "I'd rather finish my breakfast on milk and coffee by and by than
+stand this."  And he said, "Please let the coffee be until I come in to show
+you about taking out and working the butter."
+
+The scenes in the dairy need not be dwelt upon.  He saw that Jane might be
+taught, and that she would probably try to do all that her strength permitted. 
+It was perfectly clear that Mrs. Mumpson was not only ignorant of the duties
+which he had employed her to perform, but that she was also too preoccupied
+with her talk and notions of gentility ever to learn.  He was already
+satisfied that in inducing him to engage her, Lemuel Weeks had played him a
+trick, but there seemed no other resource than to fulfill his agreement.  With
+Mrs. Mumpson in the house, there might be less difficulty in securing and
+keeping a hired girl who, with Jane, might do the essential work.  But the
+future looked so unpromising that even the strong coffee could not sustain his
+spirits.  The hopefulness of the early morning departed, leaving nothing but
+dreary uncertainty.
+
+Mrs. Mumpson was bent upon accompanying him to town and engaging the girl
+herself. "There would be great propriety in my doing so," she argued at
+dinner, "and propriety is something that adorns all the human race.  There
+would be no danger of my getting any of the peculiar females such as you have
+been afflicted with.  As I am to superintend her labors, she will look up to
+me with respect and humility if she learns from the first to recognize in me a
+superior on whom she will be dependent for her daily bread.  No shiftless
+hussy would impose upon ME.  I would bring home--how sweet the word sounds!--a
+model of industry and patient endurance.  She would be deferential, she would
+know her place, too.  Everything would go like clockwork in our home.  I'll
+put on my things at once and--"
+
+"Excuse me, Mrs. Mumpson.  It would not be right to leave Jane here alone. 
+Moreover, I'd rather engage my own help."
+
+"But my dear Mr. Holcroft, you don't realize--men never do realize--that you
+will have a long, lonely ride with a female of unknown--unknown antercedents. 
+It will be scarcely respecterble, and respecterbility should be man and
+woman's chief aim.  Jane is not a timid child, and in an emergency like this,
+even if she was, she would gladly sacrifice herself to sustain the proprieties
+of life.  Now that your life has begun under new and better auspices, I feel
+that I ought to plead with you not to cloud your brightening prospects by a
+thoughtless unregard of what society looks upon as proper.  The eyes of the
+community will now be upon us--"
+
+"You must excuse me, Mrs. Mumpson.  All I ask of the community is to keep
+their eyes on their own business, while I attend to mine in my own way.  The
+probabilities are that the girl will come out on the stage Monday," and he
+rose from the dinner table and hastily made his preparations for departure. 
+He was soon driving rapidly away, having a sort of nervous apprehension lest
+Jane, or the widow, should suddenly appear on the seat beside him.  A basket
+of eggs and some inferior butter, with the burnt-out stove, were in his wagon
+and his bank book was in his pocket.  It was with sinking heart that he
+thought of making further inroads on his small accumulations.
+
+Before he was out of sight Mrs. Mumpson betook herself to the rocking chair
+and began to expatiate on the blindness and obduracy of men in general and of
+Mr. Holcroft in particular. "They are all much alike," she complained, "and
+are strangely neglectful of the proprieties of life.  My dear, deceased
+husband, your father, was becoming gradually senserble of my value in guiding
+him in this respect, and indeed, I may add in all respects, when, in the very
+prime of his expanding manhood, he was laid low.  Of course, my happiness was
+buried then and my heart can never throb again, but I have a mission in the
+world--I feel it--and here is a desolate home bereft of female influence and
+consolation and hitherto painfully devoid of respecterbility.
+
+"I once called on the late Mrs. Holcroft, and--I must say it--I went away
+depressed by a sense of her lack of ability to develop in her husband those
+qualities which would make him an ornament to society.  She was a silent
+woman, she lacked mind and ideas.  She had seen little of the world and knew
+not what was swaying people.  Therefore, her husband, having nothing else to
+think of, became absorbed in the accumulation of dollars.  Not that I object
+to dollars--they have their proper place,--but minds should be fixed on all
+things.  We should take a deep personal interest in our fellow beings, and
+thus we grow broad.  As I was saying, Mr. Holcroft was not developed by his
+late spouse.  He needs awakening, arousing, stimulating, drawing out, and such
+I feel to be my mission.  I must be patient; I cannot expect the habits of
+years to pass away under a different kind of female influence, at once."
+
+Jane had been stolidly washing and putting away dishes during this partial
+address to herself and partial soliloquy, but now remarked, "You and me will
+pass away in a week if you go on as you've begun.  I can see it comin'.  Then,
+where'll we go to?"
+
+"Your words, Jane, only show that you are an ignorant, short-sighted child. 
+Do you suppose that a woman of my years and experience would make no better
+provision for the future than a man's changeful mind--a warped and undeveloped
+mind, at that?  No; I have an agreement with Mr. Holcroft.  I shall be a
+member of his household for three months at least, and long before that he
+will begin to see everything in a new light.  It will gradually dawn upon him
+that he has been defrauded of proper female influence and society.  Now, he is
+crude, he thinks only of work and accumulating; but when the work is done by a
+menial female's hands and his mind is more at rest, there will begin to steal
+in upon him the cravings of his mind.  He will see that material things are
+not all in all."
+
+"P'raps he will.  I don't half know that you're talkin' about.  'Fi's you, I'd
+learn to work and do things as he wants 'em.  That's what I'm going to do. 
+Shall I go now and make up his bed and tidy his room?"
+
+"I think I will accompany you, Jane, and see that your task is properly
+performed."
+
+"Of course you want to see everythin' in the room, just as I do."
+
+"As housekeeper, I should see everything that is under my care.  That is the
+right way to look at the matter."
+
+"Well, come and look then."
+
+"You are becoming strangely disrespectful, Jane."
+
+"Can't help it," replied the girl, "I'm gettin' mad.  We've been elbowed
+around long's I can remember, at least I've been, and now we're in a place
+where we've a right to be, and you do nothin' but talk, talk, talk, when he
+hates talk.  Now you'll go up in his room and you'll see everythin' in it, so
+you could tell it all off tomorrow.  Why, can't you see he hates talk and
+wants somethin' done?"
+
+"Jane," said Mrs. Mumpson, in her most severe and dignified manner, "you are
+not only disrespectful to your parent, but you're a time server.  What Mr.
+Holcroft wants is a very secondary matter; what is BEST for him is the chief
+consideration.  But I have touched on things far above your comprehension. 
+Come, you can make up the bed, and I shall inspect as becomes my station."
+
+
+Chapter VI. A Marriage!
+
+In a quiet side street of the market town in which Mr. Holcroft was accustomed
+to dispose of his farm produce was a three-story tenement house. A family
+occupied each floor, those dwelling in the first two stories being plain,
+respectable people of the mechanic class.  The rooms in the third story were,
+of course, the cheapest, but even from the street might be seen evidences that
+more money had been spent upon them than could have been saved in rent.  Lace
+curtains were looped aside from the windows, through which were caught
+glimpses of flowers that must have come from a greenhouse.  We have only to
+enter these apartments to find that the suggestion of refined taste is amply
+fulfilled.  While nothing is costly, there is a touch of grace, a hint of
+beauty in everything permitting simple adornment.  The mistress of these rooms
+is not satisfied with neatness and order merely; it is her instinct to add
+something to please the eye--a need essential to her, yet too often
+conspicuously absent in rented quarters of a similar character.
+
+It is remarkable to what a degree people's abodes are a reflex of themselves. 
+Mrs. Alida Ostrom had been brought to these rooms a happy bride but a few
+months since.  They were then bare and not very clean.  Her husband had seemed
+bent on indulging her so far as his limited means permitted.  He had declared
+that his income was so modest that he could afford nothing better than these
+cheap rooms in an obscure street, but she had been abundantly content, for she
+had known even the extremity of poverty.
+
+Alida Ostrom had passed beyond the period of girlhood, with its superficial
+desires and ambitions.  When her husband first met her, she was a woman of
+thirty, and had been chastened by deep sorrows and some bitter experiences. 
+Years before, she and her mother had come to this town from a New England city
+in the hope of bettering their circumstances.  They had no weapons other than
+their needles with which to fight life's battle, but they were industrious and
+frugal--characteristic traits which won the confidence of the shopkeepers for
+whom they worked.  All went as well, perhaps, as they could expect, for two or
+three years, their secluded lives passing uneventfully and, to a certain
+extent, happily.  They had time to read some good books obtained at a public
+library; they enjoyed an occasional holiday in the country; and they went to
+church twice every Sunday when it was not stormy.  The mother usually dozed in
+the obscure seat near the door which they occupied, for she was getting old,
+and the toil of the long week wearied her.--Alida, on the contrary, was
+closely attentive.  Her mind seemed to crave all the sustenance it could get
+from every source, and her reverential manner indicated that the hopes
+inspired by her faith were dear and cherished.  Although they lived such quiet
+lives and kept themselves apart from their neighbors, there was no mystery
+about them which awakened surmises. "They've seen better days," was the common
+remark when they were spoken of; and this was true.  While they had no desire
+to be social with the people among whom they lived, they did not awaken
+prejudices by the assertion of superiority.  Indeed, it was seen that the two
+women had all they could do to earn their livelihood, and they were left to do
+this in peace.
+
+When Alida Armstrong--for that was her maiden name--carried her own and her
+mother's work to and from the shops, she often encountered admiring glances. 
+She was not exactly pretty, but she had the good, refined face which is often
+more attractive than the merely pretty one, and she possessed a trim, rounded
+figure which she knew how to clothe with taste from the simplest and most
+inexpensive materials.  Nor did she seek to dress above her station.  When
+passing along the street, any discerning person would recognize that she was a
+working girl; only the superficial would look upon her as a common-place girl. 
+There was something in her modest air and graceful, elastic carriage which
+suggested the thought to many observers, "She has seen better days."
+
+The memory of these days, which had promised immunity from wearing toil,
+anxiety, and poverty, was a barrier between the two women and their present
+world.  Death had bereft them of husband, father, and such property as he had
+left had been lost in a bad investment.  Learning that they were almost
+penniless, they had patiently set about earning honest bread.  This they had
+succeeded in doing as long as the mother kept her usual health.  But the
+infirmities of age were creeping upon her.  One winter she took a heavy cold
+and was very ill.  She rallied only temporarily in the milder days of spring. 
+In the summer's heat her strength failed, and she died.
+
+During her mother's long illness Alida was devotion itself.  The strain upon
+her was severe indeed, for she not only had to earn food for both, but there
+were also doctor's bills, medicines, and delicacies to pay for.  The poor girl
+grew thin from work by day, watching by night, and from fear and anxiety at
+all times.  Their scanty savings were exhausted; articles were sold from their
+rooms; the few precious heirlooms of silver and china were disposed of; Alida
+even denied herself the food she needed rather than ask for help or permit her
+mother to want for anything which ministered to their vain hopes of renewed
+health.
+
+What she should have done she scarcely knew, had not an unexpected friend
+interested himself in her behalf.  In one of the men's clothing stores was a
+cutter from whom she obtained work.  Soon after he appeared in this shop he
+began to manifest signs of interest in her  He was about her own age, he had a
+good trade, and she often wondered why he appeared so reticent and moody, as
+compared with others in similar positions.  But he always spoke kindly to her,
+and when her mother's illness first developed, he showed all the leniency
+permitted to him in regard to her work.  His apparent sympathy, and the need
+of explaining why she was not able to finish her tasks as promptly as usual,
+led her gradually to reveal to him the sad struggle in which she was engaged. 
+He promised to intercede in her behalf with their mutual employers, and asked
+if he might come to see her mother.
+
+Recognizing how dependent she was upon this man's good will, and seeing
+nothing in his conduct but kindness and sympathy, she consented.  His course
+and his words confirmed all her good impressions and awakened on her side
+corresponding sympathy united with a lively gratitude.  He told her that he
+also was a stranger in the town, that he had but few acquaintances and no
+friends, that he had lost relatives and was in no need to go about like other
+young men.  His manner was marked apparently by nothing more than interest and
+a wish to help her, and was untinged by gallantry; so they gradually became
+good friends.  When he called Sunday afternoons the mother looked at him
+wistfully, in the hope that her daughter would not be left without a
+protector.  At last the poor woman died, and Alida was in sore distress, for
+she had no means with which to bury her.  Ostrom came and said in the kindest
+tones:
+
+"You must let me lend you what you need and you can pay me back with interest,
+if you wish.  You won't be under any obligation, for I have money lying idle
+in the bank.  When you have only yourself to support it will not take you long
+to earn the sum."
+
+There seemed nothing else for her to do and so it was arranged.  With
+tear-blinded eyes she made her simple mourning, and within a week after her
+mother's death was at work again, eager to repay her debt.  He urged her not
+to hasten--to take all the rest she could while the hot weather lasted, and
+few evenings passed that he did not come to take her out for a walk through
+the quieter streets.
+
+By this time he had won her confidence completely, and her heart overflowed
+with gratitude.  Of course she was not so unsophisticated as not to know
+whither all this attention was tending, but it was a great relief to her mind
+that his courtship was so quiet and undemonstrative.  Her heart was sore and
+grief-stricken, and she was not conscious of any other feeling toward him than
+the deepest gratitude and wish to make such return as was within her power. 
+He was apparently very frank in regard to his past life, and nothing was said
+which excited her suspicions.  Indeed, she felt that it would be disloyalty to
+think of questioning or surmising evil of one who had proved himself so true a
+friend in her sore need.  She was therefore somewhat prepared for the words he
+spoke one warm September day, as they sat together in a little shaded park.
+
+"Alida," he said, a little nervously, "we are both strangers and alone in this
+world, but surely we are no longer strangers to each other.  Let us go quietly
+to some minister and be married.  That is the best way for you to pay your
+debt and keep me always in debt to you."
+
+She was silent a moment, then faltered, "I'd rather pay all my debt first."
+
+"What debts can there be between husband and wife?  Come now, let us look at
+the matter sensibly.  I don't want to frighten you.  Things will go on much
+the same.  We can take quiet rooms, I will bring work to you instead of your
+having to go after it.  It's nobody's business but our own.  We've not a
+circle of relations to consult or invite.  We can go to some parsonage, the
+minister's family will be the witnesses; then I'll leave you at your room as
+usual, and no one will be any the wiser till I've found a place where we can
+go to housekeeping.  That won't be long, I can tell you."
+
+He placed the matter in such a simple, natural light that she did not know how
+to refuse.
+
+"Perhaps I do not love you as much as you ought to be loved, and deserve to be
+in view of all your kindness," she tried to explain. "I feel I ought to be
+very truthful and not deceive you in the least, as I know you would not
+deceive me."  So strong a shiver passed through his frame that she exclaimed,
+"You are taking cold or you don't feel well."
+
+"Oh, it's nothing!" he said hastily, "only the night air, and then a fellow
+always feels a little nervous, I suppose, when he's asking for something on
+which his happiness depends.  I'm satisfied with such feeling and good will as
+you have for me, and will be only too glad to get you just as you are.  Come,
+before it is too late in the evening."
+
+"Is your heart bent on this, after what I have said, Wilson?"
+
+"Yes, yes, indeed!" clasping her hand and drawing her to her feet.
+
+"It would seem very ungrateful in me to refuse, after all you have done for me
+and mother, if you think it's right and best.  Will you go to the minister
+whose church I attended, and who came to see mother?"
+
+"Certainly, anyone you like," and he put her hand on his arm and led her away.
+
+The clergyman listened sympathetically to her brief history of Ostrom's
+kindness, then performed a simple ceremony which his wife and daughters
+witnessed.  As they were about to depart he said, "I will send you a
+certificate."
+
+"Don't trouble yourself to do that," said the groom. "I'll call for it some
+evening soon."
+
+Never had she seen Ostrom in such gay spirits as on their return; and,
+woman-like, she was happy chiefly because she had made him happy.  She also
+felt a glad sense of security.  Her mother's dying wish had been fulfilled;
+she had now a protector, and would soon have a home instead of a boarding
+place among strangers.
+
+Her husband speedily found the rooms to which the reader has been introduced. 
+The street on which they were located was no thoroughfare.  Its farther end
+was closed by a fence and beyond were fields.  With the exception of those who
+dwelt upon it or had business with the residents, few people came thither.  To
+this locality, Ostrom brought his bride, and selected rooms whose windows were
+above those of the surrounding houses.  So far from regretting this isolation
+and remoteness from the central life of the town, Alida's feelings sanctioned
+his choice.  The sense of possessing security and a refuge was increased, and
+it was as natural for her to set about making the rooms homelike as it was to
+breathe.  Her husband appeared to have exhausted his tendencies toward close
+economy in the choice of apartments, and she was given more money than she
+desired with which to furnish and decorate.  He said, "fix everything up to
+suit your mind, and I'll be satisfied."
+
+This she did with such skill, taste, and good management that she returned a
+large portion of the sum he had given her, whereupon he laughingly remarked
+that she had already saved more than she owed him.  He seemed disinclined to
+accompany her in the selection of their simple outfit, but professed himself
+so pleased with her choice of everything that she was gratified and happy in
+the thought of relieving him from trouble.
+
+Thus their married life began under what appeared to her the most promising
+and congenial circumstances.  She soon insisted on having work again, and her
+busy fingers did much to increase his income.
+
+Alida was not an exacting woman, and recognized from the beginning that her
+husband would naturally have peculiar ways of his own.  Unlike Mrs. Mumpson,
+she never expatiated on "adaptation," but Ostrom soon learned, with much
+inward relief, that his wife would accept unquestioningly what appeared to be
+his habits and preferences.  He went early to his place of work, taking the
+nice little lunch which she prepared, and returned in the dusk of the evening
+when he always found a warm dinner in readiness.  After this, he was ready
+enough to walk with her, but, as before, chose the least frequented streets. 
+Places of amusement and resort seemed distasteful.  On Sundays he enjoyed a
+ramble in the country as long as the season permitted, and then showed a great
+disinclination to leave the fireside.  For a time he went with her in the
+evening to church, but gradually persuaded her to remain at home and read or
+talk to him.
+
+His wife felt that she had little cause to complain of his quiet ways and
+methodical habits.  He had exhibited them before marriage and they were
+conducive to her absolute sense of proprietorship in him--an assurance so dear
+to a woman's heart.  The pleasures of his home and her society appeared to be
+all that he craved.  At times she had wondered a little at a certain air of
+apprehensiveness in his manner when steps were heard upon the stairs, but as
+the quiet days and weeks passed, such manifestations of nervousness ceased. 
+Occasionally, he would start violently and mutter strange words in his sleep,
+but noting disturbed the growing sense of security and satisfaction in Alida's
+heart.  The charm of a regular, quiet life grows upon one who has a nature
+fitted for it, and this was true to an unusual degree of Alida Ostrom.  Her
+content was also increased by the fact that her husband was able each month to
+deposit a goodly portion of their united earnings in a savings bank.
+
+Every day, every week, was so like the preceding ones that it seemed as if
+their happy life might go on forever.  She was gladly conscious that there was
+more than gratitude and good will in her heart.  She now cherished a deep
+affection for her husband and felt that he had become essential to her life.
+
+"Oh, how happy mother would be if she knew how safe and protected I am!" she
+murmured one March evening, as she was preparing her husband's dinner.
+"Leaving me alone in the world was far worse to her than dying."
+
+At that very moment a gaunt-looking woman, with a child in her arms, stood in
+the twilight on the opposite side of the street, looking up at the windows.
+
+
+Chapter VII. From Home to the Street
+
+As the shadows of the gloomy March evening deepened, Alida lighted the lamp,
+and was then a little surprised to hear a knock at the door.  No presentiment
+of trouble crossed her mind; she merely thought that one of her neighbors on
+the lower floors had stepped up to borrow something.
+
+"Come in!" she cried, as she adjusted the shade of the lamp.
+
+A tall, thin, pale woman entered, carrying a child that was partly hidden by a
+thin shawl, their only outer protection against the chill winds which had been
+blustering all day.  Alida looked at the stranger inquiringly and kindly,
+expecting an appeal for charity.  The woman sank into a chair as if exhausted,
+and fixed her dark hollow eyes on Mrs. Ostrom.  She appeared consumed by a
+terrible curiosity.
+
+Alida wondered at the strange chill of apprehension with which she encountered
+this gaze.  It was so intent, so searching, yet so utterly devoid of a trace
+of good will.  She began gently, "Can I do anything for you?"
+
+For a moment or two longer there was no response other than the same cold,
+questioning scrutiny, as if, instead of a sweet-faced woman, something
+monstrously unnatural was present.  At last, in slow, icy utterance, came the
+words, "So you are--HER!"
+
+"Is this woman insane?" thought Alida. "Why else does she look at me so?  Oh,
+that Wilson would come!  I'm sorry for you, my good woman," she began kindly.
+"You are laboring under some mistake.  My husband--"
+
+"YOUR husband!" exclaimed the stranger, with an indescribable accent of scorn
+and reproach.
+
+"Yes," replied Alida with quiet dignity. "MY husband will be home soon and he
+will protect me.  You have no right to enter my rooms and act as you do.  If
+you are sick and in trouble, I and my husband--"
+
+"Please tell me, miss, how he became YOUR husband?"
+
+"By lawful marriage, by my pastor."
+
+"We'll soon see how LAWFUL it was," replied the woman, with a bitter laugh.
+"I'd like you to tell me how often a man can be married lawfully."
+
+"What do you mean?" cried Alida, with a sudden flash in her blue eyes.  Then,
+as if reproaching herself, she added kindly, "Pardon me.  I see you are not
+well.  You do not realize what you are saying or where you are.  Take a seat
+nearer the fire, and when Mr. Ostrom comes from his work he'll take you to
+your friends."
+
+All the while she was speaking the woman regarded her with a hard, stony gaze;
+then replied, coldly and decisively, "You are wrong, miss"--how that title
+grated on Alida's ears!--"I am neither insane nor drunk.  I do know what I am
+saying and where I am.  You are playing a bold game or else you have been
+deceived, and very easily deceived, too.  They say some women are so eager to
+be married that they ask no questions, but jump at the first chance.  Whether
+deceived or deceiving, it doesn't matter now.  But you and he shall learn that
+there is a law in the land which will protect an honest woman in her sacred
+rights.  You needn't look so shocked and bewildered.  You are not a young,
+giddy girl if I may judge from your face.  What else could you expect when you
+took up with a stranger you knew nothing about?  Do you know that likeness?"
+and she drew from her bosom a daguerreotype.
+
+Alida waved it away as she said indignantly, "I won't believe ill of my
+husband.  I--"
+
+"No, miss," interrupted the woman sternly, "you are right for once.  You won't
+indeed believe ill of YOUR husband, but you'll have to believe ill of MINE. 
+There's no use of your putting on such airs any longer.  No matter how rash
+and silly you may have been, if you have a spark of honesty you'll be open to
+proof.  If you and he try to brazen it out, the law will open both your eyes. 
+Look at that likeness, look at these letters; and I have other proof and
+witnesses which can't be disputed.  The name of the man you are living with is
+not Wilson Ostrom.  His name is Henry Ferguson.  I am Mrs. Ferguson, and I
+have my marriage certificate, and--What!  Are you going to faint?  Well, I can
+wait till you recover and till HE comes," and she coolly sat down again.
+
+Alida had glanced at the proofs which the woman had thrust into her hands,
+then staggered back to a lounge that stood near.  She might have fainted, but
+at that awful moment she heard a familiar step on the stairs.  She was facing
+the door; the terrible stranger sat at one side, with her back toward it.
+
+When Ostrom entered he first saw Alida looking pale and ill.  He hastened
+toward her exclaiming, "Why, Lida, dear, what is the matter?  You are sick!"
+
+Instinctively she sprang to his arms, crying, "Oh, thank God!  You've come. 
+Take away this awful woman!"
+
+"Yes, Henry Ferguson; it's very proper you should take me away from a place
+like this."
+
+As the man who had called himself Wilson Ostrom heard that voice he trembled
+like an aspen; his clasp of Alida relaxed, his arms dropped to his side, and,
+as he sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands, he groaned,
+"Lost!"
+
+"Found out, you mean," was the woman's reply.
+
+Step by step, with horror-stricken eyes, Alida retreated from the man to whose
+protection and embrace she had flown. "Then it's true?" she said in a hoarse
+whisper.
+
+He was speechless.
+
+"You are willfully blind now, miss, if you don't see it's true," was the
+stranger's biting comment.
+
+Paying no heed to her, Alida's eyes rested on the man whom she had believed to
+be her husband.  She took an irresolute step toward him. "Speak, Wilson!" she
+cried. "I gave you my whole faith and no one shall destroy it but yourself. 
+Speak, explain!  Show me that there's some horrible mistake."
+
+"Lida," said the man, lifting his bloodless face, "if you knew all the
+circumstances--"
+
+"She shall know them!" half shrieked the woman, as if at last stung to fury.
+"I see that you both hope to get through this affair with a little high
+tragedy, then escape and come together again in some other hiding place.  As
+for this creature, she can go where she pleases, after hearing the truth; but
+you, Henry Ferguson, have got to do your duty by me and your child or go to
+prison.  Let me tell you, miss, that this man was also married to me by a
+minister.  I have my certificate and can produce witnesses.  There's one
+little point you'll do well to consider," she continued, in bitter sarcasm,
+"he married me first.  I suppose you are not so young and innocent as not to
+know where this fact places YOU.  He courted and won me as other girls are
+courted and married.  He promised me all that he ever promised you.  Then,
+when I lost my rosy cheeks--when I became sick and feeble from
+child-bearing--he deserted and left me almost penniless.  You needn't think
+you will have to take my word for this.  I have proof enough.  And now, Henry
+Ferguson, I've a few words for you, and then you must take your choice.  You
+can't escape.  I and my brother have tracked you here.  You can't leave these
+rooms without going to prison.  You'd be taken at the very door.  But I give
+you one more chance.  If you will promise before God to do your duty by me and
+your child, I'll forgive as far as a wronged woman can forgive.  Neither I nor
+my brother will take proceedings against you.  What this woman will do I don't
+know.  If she prosecutes you, and you are true to me, I'll stand by you, but I
+won't stand another false step or a false word from you."
+
+Ferguson had again sunk into his chair, buried his face in his hands, and sat
+trembling and speechless.  Never for an instant had Alida taken her eyes from
+him; and now, with a long, wailing cry, she exclaimed, "Thank God, thank God! 
+Mother's dead."
+
+This was now her best consolation.  She rushed into her bedchamber, and a
+moment later came out, wearing her hat and cloak.  Ferguson started up and was
+about to speak, but she silenced him by a gesture, and her tones were sad and
+stern as she said, "Mr. Ferguson, from your manner more truly than from this
+woman, I learn the truth.  You took advantage of my misfortunes, my sorrow and
+friendlessness, to deceive me.  You know how false are your wife's words about
+my eagerness to be deceived and married.  But you have nothing to fear from
+me.  I shall not prosecute you as she suggests, and I charge you before God to
+do your duty by your wife and child and never to speak to me again."  Turning,
+she hastened toward the door.
+
+"Where are you going?" Ferguson exclaimed, seeking to intercept her.
+
+She waved him off. "I don't know," she replied. "I've no right to be here,"
+and she fled down the stairway and out into the darkness.
+
+The child had not wakened.  It was well that it had not looked upon such a
+scene, even in utter ignorance of its meaning.
+
+
+Chapter VIII. Holcroft's View of Matrimony
+
+Holcroft was indeed very lonely as he drove through the bare March fields and
+leafless woods on his way to town.  The sky had clouded again, like his
+prospects, and he had the dreary sense of desolation which overwhelms a quiet,
+domestic man who feels that his home and all to which he clings are slipping
+from him.  His lot was hard enough at best, and he had a bitter sense of being
+imposed upon and wronged by Lemuel Weeks.  It was now evident enough that the
+widow and her daughter had been an intolerable burden to his neighbor, who had
+taken advantage of his need and induced him to assume the burden through false
+representation.  To a man of Holcroft's simple, straightforward nature, any
+phase of trickery was intensely repugnant, and the fact that he had been
+overreached in a matter relating to his dearest hopes galled him to the quick. 
+He possessed the strong common sense of his class; his wife had been like him
+in this respect, and her influence had intensified the trait.  Queer people
+with abnormal manners excited his intense aversion.  The most charitable view
+that he could take of Mrs. Mumpson was that her mind--such as she had--was
+unbalanced, that it was an impossibility for her to see any subject or duty in
+a sensible light or its right proportions.
+
+Her course, so prejudicial to her own interests, and her incessant and stilted
+talk, were proof to his mind of a certain degree of insanity, and he had heard
+that people in this condition often united to their unnatural ways a wonderful
+degree of cunning.  Her child was almost as uncanny as herself and gave him a
+shivering sense of discomfort whenever he caught her small, greenish eyes
+fixed upon him.
+
+"Yet, she'll be the only one who'll earn her salt.  I don't see how I'm going
+to stand 'em--I don't, indeed, but suppose I'll have to for three months, or
+else sell out and clear out."
+
+By the time he reached town a cold rain had set in.  He went at once to the
+intelligence office, but could obtain no girl for Mrs. Mumpson to
+"superintend," nor any certain promise of one.  He did not much care, for he
+felt that the new plan was not going to work.  Having bartered all his eggs
+for groceries, he sold the old stove and bought a new one, then drew from the
+bank a little ready money.  Since his butter was so inferior, he took it to
+his friend Tom Watterly, the keeper of the poorhouse.
+
+Prosperous Tom slapped his old friend on the back and said, "You look awfully
+glum and chopfallen, Jim.  Come now, don't look at the world as if it was made
+of tar, pitch, and turpentine.  I know your luck's been hard, but you make it
+a sight harder by being so set in all your ways.  You think there's no place
+to live on God's earth but that old up-and-down-hill farm of yours that I
+wouldn't take as a gift.  Why, man alive, there's a dozen things you can turn
+your hand to; but if you will stay there, do as other men do.  Pick out a
+smart, handy woman that can make butter yaller as gold, that'll bring gold,
+and not such limpsy-slimsy, ghostly-looking stuff as you've brought me.  Bein'
+it's you, I'll take it and give as much for it as I'd pay for better, but you
+can't run your old ranch in this fashion."
+
+"I know it, Tom," replied Holcroft ruefully. "I'm all at sea; but, as you say,
+I'm set in my ways, and I'd rather live on bread and milk and keep my farm
+than make money anywhere else.  I guess I'll have to give it all up, though,
+and pull out, but it's like rooting up one of the old oaks in the meadow lot. 
+The fact is, Tom, I've been fooled into one of the worst scrapes I've got into
+yet."
+
+"I see how it is," said Tom heartily and complacently, "you want a practical,
+foresighted man to talk straight at you for an hour or two and clear up the
+fog you're in.  You study and brood over little things out there alone until
+they seem mountains which you can't get over nohow, when, if you'd take one
+good jump out, they'd be behind you.  Now, you've got to stay and take a bite
+with me, and then we'll light our pipes and untangle this snarl.  No backing
+out!  I can do you more good than all the preachin' you ever heard.  Hey,
+there, Bill!" shouting to one of the paupers who was detailed for such work,
+"take this team to the barn and feed 'em.  Come in, come in, old feller! 
+You'll find that Tom Watterly allus has a snack and a good word for an old
+crony."
+
+Holcroft was easily persuaded, for he felt the need of cheer, and he looked up
+to Tom as a very sagacious, practical man.  So he said, "Perhaps you can see
+farther into a millstone than I can, and if you can show me a way out of my
+difficulties you'll be a friend sure enough."
+
+"Why, of course I can.  Your difficulties are all here and here," touching his
+bullet head and the region of his heart. "There aint no great difficulties in
+fact, but, after you've brooded out there a week or two alone, you think
+you're caught as fast as if you were in a bear trap.  Here, Angy," addressing
+his wife, "I've coaxed Holcroft to take supper with us.  You can hurry it up a
+little, can't you?"
+
+Mrs. Watterly gave their guest a cold, limp hand and a rather frigid welcome. 
+But this did not disconcert him. "It's only her way," he had always thought.
+"She looks after her husband's interests as mine did for me, and she don't
+talk him to death."
+
+This thought, in the main, summed up Mrs. Watterly's best traits.
+
+She was a commonplace, narrow, selfish woman, whose character is not worth
+sketching.  Tom stood a little in fear of her, and was usually careful not to
+impose extra tasks, but since she helped him to save and get ahead, he
+regarded her as a model wife.
+
+Holcroft shared in his opinion and sighed deeply as he sat down to supper.
+"Ah, Tom!" he said, "you're a lucky man.  You've got a wife that keeps
+everything indoors up to the mark, and gives you a chance to attend to your
+own proper business.  That's the way it was with mine.  I never knew what a
+lopsided, helpless creature a man was until I was left alone.  You and I were
+lucky in getting the women we did, but when my partner left me, she took all
+the luck with her.  That aint the worst.  She took what's more than luck and
+money and everything.  I seemed to lose with her my grit and interest in most
+things.  It'll seem foolishness to you, but I can't take comfort in anything
+much except working that old farm that I've worked and played on ever since I
+can remember anything.  You're not one of those fools, Tom, that have to learn
+from their own experience.  Take a bit from mine, and be good to your wife
+while you can.  I'd give all I'm worth--I  know that aint much--if I could say
+some things to my wife and do some things for her that I didn't do."
+
+Holcroft spoke in the simplicity of a full and remorseful heart, but he
+unconsciously propitiated Mrs. Watterly in no small degree.  Indeed, she felt
+that he had quite repaid her for his entertainment, and the usually taciturn
+woman seconded his remarks with much emphasis.
+
+"Well now, Angy," said Tom, "if you averaged up husbands in these parts I
+guess you'd find you were faring rather better than most women folks.  I let
+you take the bit in your teeth and go your own jog mostly.  Now, own up, don't
+I?"
+
+"That wasn't my meaning, exactly, Tom," resumed Holcroft. "You and I could
+well afford to let our wives take their own jog, for they always jogged steady
+and faithful and didn't need any urging and guiding.  But even a dumb critter
+likes a good word now and then and a little patting on the back.  It doesn't
+cost us anything and does them a sight of good.  But we kind of let the
+chances slip by and forget about it until like enough it's too late."
+
+"Well," replied Tom, with a deprecatory look at his wife, "Angy don't take to
+pettin' very much.  She thinks it's a kind of foolishness for such middle-aged
+people as we're getting to be."
+
+"A husband can show his consideration without blarneying," remarked Mrs.
+Watterly coldly. "When a man takes on in that way, you may be sure he wants
+something extra to pay for it."
+
+After a little thought Holcroft said, "I guess it's a good way to pay for it
+between husband and wife."
+
+"Look here, Jim, since you're so well up on the matrimonial question, why in
+thunder don't you marry again?  That would settle all your difficulties," and
+Tom looked at his friend with a sort of wonder that he should hesitate to take
+this practical, sensible course.
+
+"It's very easy for you to say, 'Why don't you marry again?'  If you were in
+my place you'd see that there are things in the way of marrying for the sake
+of having a good butter maker and all that kind of thing."
+
+"Mr. Watterly wouldn't be long in comforting himself," remarked his
+wife.--"His advice to you makes the course he'd take mighty clear."
+
+"Now, Angy!" said Tom reproachfully. "Well," he added with a grin, "you're
+forewarned.  So you've only to take care of yourself and not give me a
+chance."
+
+"The trouble is," Holcroft resumed, "I don't see how an honest man is going to
+comfort himself unless it all comes about in some natural sort of way.  I
+suppose there are people who can marry over and over again, just as easy as
+they'd roll off a log.  It aint for me to judge 'em, and I don't understand
+how they do it.  You are a very practical man, Tom, but just you put yourself
+in my shoes and see what you'd do.  In the first place, I don't know of a
+woman in the world that I'd think of marrying.  That's saying nothing against
+the women,--there's lots too good for me,--but I don't know 'em and I can't go
+around and hunt 'em up.  Even if I could, with my shy, awkward ways, I
+wouldn't feel half so nervous starting out on a bear hunt.  Here's difficulty
+right at the beginning.  Supposing I found a nice, sensible woman, such as I'd
+be willing to marry, there isn't one chance in a hundred she'd look at an old
+fellow like me.  Another difficulty: Supposing she would; suppose she looked
+me square in the eyes and said, 'So you truly want a wife?' what in thunder
+would I say then?--I don't want a wife, I want a housekeeper, a butter maker,
+one that would look after my interests as if they were her own; and if I could
+hire a woman that would do what I wish, I'd never think of marrying.  I can't
+tell a woman that I love her when I don't.  If I went to a minister with a
+woman I'd be deceiving him, and deceiving her, and perjuring myself
+promiscuously.  I married once according to law and gospel and I was married
+through and through, and I can't do the thing over again in any way that would
+seem to me like marrying at all.  The idea of me sitting by the fire and
+wishing that the woman who sat on the t'other side of the stove was my first
+wife!  Yet I couldn't help doing this any more than breathing.  Even if there
+was any chance of my succeeding I can't see anything square or honest in my
+going out and hunting up a wife as a mere matter of business.  I know other
+people do it and I've thought a good deal about it myself, but when it comes
+to the point of acting I find I can't do it."
+
+The two men now withdrew from the table to the fireside and lighted their
+pipes.  Mrs. Watterly stepped out for a moment and Tom, looking over his
+shoulder to make sure she was out of ear shot, said under his breath, "But
+suppose you found a woman that you could love and obey, and all that?"
+
+"Oh, of course, that would make everything different.  I wouldn't begin with a
+lie then, and I know enough of my wife to feel sure that she wouldn't be a
+sort of dog in the manger after she was dead.  She was one of those good souls
+that if she could speak her mind this minute she would say, 'James, what's
+best and right for you is best and right.'  But it's just because she was such
+a good wife that I know there's no use of trying to put anyone in her place. 
+Where on earth could I find anybody, and how could we get acquainted so that
+we'd know anything about each other?  No, I must just scratch along for a
+short time as things are and be on the lookout to sell or rent."
+
+Tom smoked meditatively for a few moments, and then remarked, "I guess that's
+your best way out."
+
+"It aint an easy way, either," said Holcroft. "Finding a purchaser or tenant
+for a farm like mine is almost as hard as finding a wife.  Then, as I feel,
+leaving my place is next to leaving the world."
+
+Tom shook his head ruefully and admitted,, "I declare, Jim, when a feller
+comes to think it all over, you ARE in a bad fix, especially as you feel.  I
+thought I could talk you over into practical common sense in no time.  It's
+easy enough when one don't know all the bearin's of a case, to think
+carelessly, 'Oh, he aint as bad off as he thinks he is.  He can do this and
+that and the t'other thing.'  But when you come to look it all over, you find
+he can't, except at a big loss.  Of course, you can give away your farm on
+which you were doing well and getting ahead, though how you did it, I can't
+see.  You'd have to about give it away if you forced a sale, and where on
+earth you'll find a tenant who'll pay anything worth considering--But there's
+no use of croaking.  I wish I could help you, old feller.  By jocks! I believe
+I can.  There's an old woman here who's right smart and handy when she can't
+get her bottle filled.  I believe she'd be glad to go with you, for she don't
+like our board and lodging over much."
+
+"Do you think she'd go tonight?"
+
+"Oh, yes!  Guess so.  A little cold water'll be a good change for her."
+
+Mrs. Wiggins was seen, and feeling that any change would be for the better,
+readily agreed to go for very moderate wages.  Holcroft looked dubiously at
+the woman's heavy form and heavier face, but felt that it was the best he
+could do.  Squeezing Mrs. Watterly's cold, limp hand in a way that would have
+thawed a lump of ice, he said "goodby;" and then declaring that he would
+rather do his own harnessing for a night ride, he went out into the storm. 
+Tom put on his rubber coat and went to the barn with his friend, toward whom
+he cherished honest good will.
+
+"By jocks!" he ejaculated sympathetically, "but you have hard lines, Jim. 
+What in thunder would I do with two such widdy women to look after my house!"
+
+
+Chapter IX. Mrs. Mumpson Accepts Her Mission
+
+As Holcroft drove through the town, Mrs. Wiggins, who, as matters were
+explained to her, had expressed her views chiefly by affirmative nods, now
+began to use her tongue with much fluency.
+
+"Hi 'ave a friend 'herhabouts," she said, "an' she's been a-keepin' some of my
+things.  Hi'll be 'olden to ye, master, hif ye'll jes stop a bit hat the door
+whiles hi gets 'em.  Hif ye'll hadvance me a dollar or so on me wages hit'll
+be a long time hafore I trouble ye hagain."
+
+The farmer had received too broad a hint not to know that Mrs. Wiggins was
+intent on renewing her acquaintance with her worst enemy.  He briefly replied,
+therefore, "It's too late to stop now.  I'll be coming down soon again and
+will get your things."
+
+In vain Mrs. Wiggins expostulated, for he drove steadily on.  With a sort of
+grim humor, he thought of the meeting of the two "widdy women," as Tom had
+characterized them, and of Mrs. Mumpson's dismay at finding in the "cheap
+girl" a dame of sixty, weighing not far from two hundred. "If it wasn't such
+awfully serious business for me," he thought, "it would be better'n going to a
+theater to see the two go on.  If I haven't got three 'peculiar females' on my
+hands now, I'd like to hear of the man that has."
+
+When Mrs. Wiggins found that she could not gain her point, she subsided into
+utter silence.  It soon became evident in the cloudy light of the moon that
+she was going to sleep, for she so nodded and swayed about that the farmer
+feared she would tumble out of the wagon.  She occupied a seat just back of
+his and filled it, too.  The idea of stepping over, sitting beside her, and
+holding her in, was inexpressibly repugnant to him.  So he began talking to
+her, and finally shouting at her, to keep her awake.
+
+His efforts were useless.  He glanced with rueful dismay over his shoulder as
+he thought, "If she falls out, I don't see how on earth I'll ever get her back
+again."
+
+Fortunately the seat slipped back a little, and she soon slid down into a sort
+of mountainous heap on the bottom of the wagon, as unmindful of the rain as if
+it were a lullaby.  Now that his mind was at rest about her falling out, and
+knowing that he had a heavy load, Holcroft let the horses take their own time
+along the miry highway.
+
+Left to her own devices by Holcroft's absence, Mrs. Mumpson had passed what
+she regarded as a very eventful afternoon and evening.  Not that anything
+unusual had happened, unless everything she said and did may be looked upon as
+unusual; but Mrs. Mumpson justly felt that the critical periods of life are
+those upon which definite courses of action are decided upon.  In the secret
+recess of her heart--supposing her to possess such an organ--she had partially
+admitted to herself, even before she had entered Holcroft's door, that she
+might be persuaded into marrying him; but the inspection of his room, much
+deliberate thought, and prolonged soliloquy, had convinced her that she ought
+to "enter into nuptial relations," as her thought formulated itself.  It was a
+trait of Mrs. Mumpson's active mind, that when it once entered upon a line of
+thought, it was hurried along from conclusion to conclusion with wonderful
+rapidity.
+
+While Jane made up Mr. Holcroft's bed, her mother began to inspect, and soon
+suffered keenly from every painful discovery.  The farmer's meager wardrobe
+and other belongings were soon rummaged over, but one large closet and several
+bureau drawers were locked. "These are the receptercles of the deceased Mrs.
+Holcroft's affects," she said with compressed lips. "They are moldering
+useless away.  Moth and rust will enter, while I, the caretaker, am debarred. 
+I should not be debarred.  All the things in that closet should be shaken out,
+aired, and carefully put back.  Who knows how useful they may be in the
+future!  Waste is wicked.  Indeed, there are few things more wicked than
+waste.  Now I think of it, I have some keys in my trunk."
+
+"He won't like it," interposed Jane.
+
+"In the responserble persition I have assumed," replied Mrs. Mumpson with
+dignity, "I must consider not what he wants, but what is best for him and what
+may be best for others."
+
+Jane had too much curiosity herself to make further objection, and the keys
+were brought.  It was astonishing what a number of keys Mrs. Mumpson
+possessed, and she was not long in finding those which would open the ordinary
+locks thought by Holcroft to be ample protection.
+
+"I was right," said Mrs. Mumpson complacently. "A musty odor exudes from these
+closed receptercles,.  Men have no comprehension of the need of such
+caretakers as I am."
+
+Everything that had ever belonged to poor Mrs. Holcroft was pulled out, taken
+to the window, and examined, Jane following, as usual, in the wake of her
+mother and putting everything to the same tests which her parent applied. 
+Mrs. Holcroft had been a careful woman, and the extent and substantial
+character of her wardrobe proved that her husband had not been close in his
+allowances to her.  Mrs. Mumpson's watery blue eyes grew positively animated
+as she felt of and held up to the light one thing after another. "Mrs.
+Holcroft was evidently unnaturally large," she reflected aloud, "but then
+these things could be made over, and much material be left to repair them,
+from time to time.  The dresses are of somber colors, becoming to a lady
+somewhat advanced in years and of subdued taste."
+
+By the time that the bed and all the chairs in the room were littered with
+wearing apparel, Mrs. Mumpson said, "Jane, I desire you to bring the rocking
+chair.  So many thoughts are crowding upon me that I must sit down and think."
+
+Jane did as requested, but remarked, "The sun is gettin' low, and all these
+things'll have to be put back just as they was or he'll be awful mad."
+
+"Yes, Jane," replied Mrs. Mumpson abstractedly and rocking gently, "you can
+put them back.  Your mind is not burdened like mine, and you haven't offspring
+and the future to provide for," and, for a wonder, she relapsed into silence. 
+Possibly she possessed barely enough of womanhood to feel that her present
+train of thought had better be kept to herself.  She gradually rocked faster
+and faster, thus indicating that she was rapidly approaching a conclusion.
+
+Meanwhile, Jane was endeavoring to put things back as they were before and
+found it no easy task.  As the light declined she was overcome by a sort of
+panic, and, huddling the things into the drawers as fast as possible, she
+locked them up.  Then, seizing her mother's hand and pulling the abstracted
+woman to her feet, she cried, "If he comes and finds us here and no supper
+ready, he'll turn us right out into the rain!"
+
+Even Mrs. Mumpson felt that she was perhaps reaching conclusions too fast and
+that some diplomacy might be necessary to consummate her plans.  Her views,
+however, appeared to her so reasonable that she scarcely thought of failure,
+having the happy faculty of realizing everything in advance, whether it ever
+took place or not.
+
+As she slowly descended the stairs with the rocking chair, she thought,
+"Nothing could be more suiterble.  We are both about the same age; I am most
+respecterbly connected--in fact, I regard myself as somewhat his superior in
+this respect; he is painfully undeveloped and irreligious and thus is in sore
+need of female influence; he is lonely and down-hearted, and in woman's voice
+there is a spell to banish care; worst of all, things are going to waste.  I
+must delib'rately face the great duty with which Providence has brought me
+face to face.  At first, he may be a little blind to this great oppertunity of
+his life--that I must expect, remembering the influence he was under so many
+years--but I will be patient and, by the proper use of language, place
+everything eventually before him in a way that will cause him to yield in glad
+submission to my views of the duties, the privileges, and the
+responserbilities of life."
+
+So active was Mrs. Mumpson's mind that this train of thought was complete by
+the time she had ensconced herself in the rocking chair by the fireless
+kitchen stove.  Once more Jane seized her hand and dragged her up. "You must
+help," said the child. "I 'spect him every minnit and I'm scart half to death
+to think what he'll do, 'specially if he finds out we've been rummagin'."
+
+"Jane," said Mrs. Mumpson severely, "that is not a proper way of expressing
+yourself.  I am housekeeper here, and I've been inspecting."
+
+"Shall I tell him you've been inspectin'?" asked the girl keenly.
+
+"Children of your age should speak when they are spoken to," replied her
+mother, still more severely. "You cannot comprehend my motives and duties, and
+I should have to punish you if you passed any remarks upon my actions."
+
+"Well," said Jane apprehensively, "I only hope we'll soon have a chance to fix
+up them drawers, for if he should open 'em we'd have to tramp again, and we
+will anyway if you don't help me get supper."
+
+"You are mistaken, Jane," responded Mrs. Mumpson with dignity. "We shall not
+leave this roof for three months, and that will give me ample time to open his
+eyes to his true interests.  I will condescend to these menial tasks until he
+brings a girl who will yield the deference due to my years and station in
+life."
+
+Between them, after filling the room with smoke, they kindled the kitchen
+fire.  Jane insisted on making the coffee and then helped her mother to
+prepare the rest of the supper, doing, in fact, the greater part of the work. 
+Then they sat down to wait, and they waited so long that Mrs. Mumpson began to
+express her disapproval by rocking violently.  At last, she said severely,
+"Jane, we will partake of supper alone."
+
+"I'd ruther wait till he comes."
+
+"It's not proper that we should wait.  He is not showing me due respect. 
+Come, do as I command."
+
+Mrs. Mumpson indulged in lofty and aggrieved remarks throughout the meal and
+then returned to her rocker.  At last, her indignant sense of wrong reached
+such a point that she commanded Jane to clear the table and put away the
+things.
+
+"I won't," said the child.
+
+"What!  Will you compel me to chastise you?"
+
+"Well, then, I'll tell him it was all your doin's."
+
+"I shall tell him so myself.  I shall remonstrate with him.  The idea of his
+coming home alone at this time of night with an unknown female!"
+
+"One would think you was his aunt, to hear you talk," remarked the girl
+sullenly.
+
+"I am a respecterble woman and most respecterbly connected.  My character and
+antercedents render me irrerproachful.--This could not be said of a hussy, and
+a hussy he'll probably bring--some flighty, immerture female that will tax
+even MY patience to train."
+
+Another hour passed, and the frown on Mrs. Mumpson's brow grew positively
+awful. "To think," she muttered, "that a man whom I have deemed it my duty to
+marry should stay out so and under such peculiar circumstances.  He must have
+a lesson which he can never forget."  Then aloud, to Jane, "Kindle a fire on
+the parlor hearth and let this fire go out.  He must find us in the most
+respecterble room in the house--a room befitting my station."
+
+"I declare, mother, you aint got no sense at all!" exclaimed the child,
+exasperated beyond measure.
+
+"I'll teach you to use such unrerspectful language!" cried Mrs. Mumpson,
+darting from her chair like a hawk and pouncing upon the unhappy child.
+
+With ears tingling from a cuffing she could not soon forget, Jane lighted the
+parlor fire and sat down sniffling in the farthest corner.
+
+"There shall be only one mistress in this house," said Mrs. Mumpson, who had
+now reached the loftiest plane of virtuous indignation, "and its master shall
+learn that his practices reflect upon even me as well as himself."
+
+At last the sound of horses' feet were heard on the wet, oozy ground without. 
+The irate widow did not rise, but merely indicated her knowledge of Holcroft's
+arrival by rocking more rapidly.
+
+"Hello, there, Jane!" he shouted, "bring a light to the kitchen."
+
+"Jane, remain!" said Mrs. Mumpson, with an awful look.
+
+Holcroft stumbled through the dark kitchen to the parlor door and looked with
+surprise at the group before him,--Mrs. Mumpson apparently oblivious and
+rocking as if the chair was possessed, and the child crying in a corner.
+
+"Jane, didn't you hear me call for a light?" he asked a little sharply.
+
+Mrs. Mumpson rose with great dignity and began, "Mr. Holcroft, I wish to
+remonstrate--"
+
+"Oh, bother!  I've brought a woman to help you, and we're both wet through
+from this driving rain."
+
+"You've brought a strange female at this time of--"
+
+Holcroft's patience gave say, but he only said quietly, "You had better have a
+light in the kitchen within two minutes.  I warn you both.  I also wish some
+hot coffee."
+
+Mrs. Mumpson had no comprehension of a man who could be so quiet when he was
+angry, and she believed that she might impress him with a due sense of the
+enormity of his offense. "Mr. Holcroft, I scarcely feel that I can meet a girl
+who has no more sense of decorum than to--" But Jane, striking a match,
+revealed the fact that she was speaking to empty air.
+
+Mrs. Wiggins was at last so far aroused that she was helped from the wagon and
+came shivering and dripping toward the kitchen.  She stood a moment in the
+doorway and filled it, blinking confusedly at the light.  There was an absence
+of celerity in all Mrs. Wiggins' movements, and she was therefore slow in the
+matter of waking up.  Her aspect and proportions almost took away Mrs.
+Mumpson's breath.  Here certainly was much to superintend, much more than had
+been anticipated.  Mrs. Wiggins was undoubtedly a "peculiar female," as had
+been expected, but she was so elderly and monstrous that Mrs. Mumpson felt
+some embarrassment in her purpose to overwhelm Holcroft with a sense of the
+impropriety of his conduct.
+
+Mrs. Wiggins took uncertain steps toward the rocking chair, and almost crushed
+it as she sat down. "Ye gives a body a cold velcome," she remarked, rubbing
+her eyes.
+
+Mrs. Mumpson had got out of her way as a minnow would shun a leviathan. "May I
+ask your name?" she gasped.
+
+"Viggins, Mrs. Viggins."
+
+"Oh, indeed!  You are a married woman?"
+
+"No, hi'm a vidder.  What's more, hi'm cold, and drippin', an' 'ungry.  Hi
+might 'a' better stayed at the poor-us than come to a place like this."
+
+"What!" almost screamed Mrs. Mumpson, "are you a pauper?"
+
+"Hi tell ye hi'm a vidder, an' good as you be, for hall he said," was the
+sullen reply.
+
+"To think that a respecterbly connected woman like me--" But for once Mrs.
+Mumpson found language inadequate.  Since Mrs. Wiggins occupied the rocking
+chair, she hardly knew what to do and plaintively declared, "I feel as if my
+whole nervous system was giving way."
+
+"No 'arm 'll be done hif hit does," remarked Mrs. Wiggins, who was not in an
+amiable mood.
+
+"This from the female I'm to superintend!" gasped the bewildered woman.
+
+Her equanimity was still further disturbed by the entrance of the farmer, who
+looked at the stove with a heavy frown.
+
+"Why in the name of common sense isn't there a fire?" he asked, "and supper on
+the table?  Couldn't you hear that it was raining and know we'd want some
+supper after a long, cold ride?"
+
+"Mr. Holcroft," began the widow, in some trepidation, "I don't approve--such
+irregular habits--"
+
+"Madam," interrupted Holcroft sternly, "did I agree to do what you approved
+of?  Your course is so peculiar that I scarcely believe you are in your right
+mind.  You had better go to your room and try to recover your senses.  If I
+can't have things in this house to suit me, I'll have no one in it.  Here,
+Jane, you can help."
+
+Mrs. Mumpson put her handkerchief to her eyes and departed.  She felt that
+this display of emotion would touch Holcroft's feelings when he came to think
+the scene all over.
+
+Having kindled the fire, he said to Jane, "You and Mrs. Wiggins get some
+coffee and supper in short order, and have it ready when I come in," and he
+hastened out to care for his horses.  If the old woman was slow, she knew just
+how to make every motion effective, and a good supper was soon ready.
+
+"Why didn't you keep up a fire, Jane?" Holcroft asked.
+
+"She wouldn't let me.  She said how you must be taught a lesson," replied the
+girl, feeling that she must choose between two potentates, and deciding
+quickly in favor of the farmer.  She had been losing faith in her mother's
+wisdom a long time, and this night's experience had banished the last shred of
+it.
+
+Some rather bitter words rose to Holcroft's lips, but he restrained them.  He
+felt that he ought not to disparage the mother to the child.  As Mrs. Wiggins
+grew warm, and imbibed the generous coffee, her demeanor thawed perceptibly
+and she graciously vouchsafed the remark, "Ven you're hout late hag'in hi'll
+look hafter ye."
+
+Mrs. Mumpson had not been so far off as not to hear Jane's explanation, as the
+poor child found to her cost when she went up to bed.
+
+
+Chapter X. A Night of Terror
+
+As poor, dazed, homeless Alida passed out into the street after the revelation
+that she was not a wife and never had been, she heard a voice say, "Well,
+Hanner wasn't long in bouncing the woman.  I guess we'd better go up now. 
+Ferguson will need a lesson that he won't soon forget."
+
+The speaker of these words was Mrs. Ferguson's brother, William Hackman, and
+his companion was a detective.  The wife had laid her still sleeping child
+down on the lounge and was coolly completing Alida's preparations for dinner. 
+Her husband had sunk back into a chair and again buried his face in his hands. 
+He looked up with startled, bloodshot eyes as his brother-in-law and the
+stranger entered, and then resumed his former attitude.
+
+Mrs. Ferguson briefly related what had happened, and then said, "Take chairs
+and draw up."
+
+"I don't want any dinner," muttered the husband.
+
+Mr. William Hackman now gave way to his irritation.  Turning to his brother,
+he relieved his mind as follows: "See here, Hank Ferguson, if you hadn't the
+best wife in the land, this gentleman would now be giving you a promenade to
+jail.  I've left my work for weeks, and spent a sight of money to see that my
+sister got her rights, and, by thunder!  she's going to have 'em.  We've
+agreed to give you a chance to brace up and be a man.  If we find out there
+isn't any man in you, then you go to prison and hard labor to the full extent
+of the law.  We've fixed things so you can't play any more tricks.  This man
+is a private detective.  As long as you do the square thing by your wife and
+child, you'll be let alone.  If you try to sneak off, you'll be nabbed.  Now,
+if you aint a scamp down to your heel-taps, get up out of that chair like a
+man, treat your wife as she deserves for letting you off so easy, and don't
+make her change her mind by acting as if you, and not her, was the wronged
+person."
+
+At heart Ferguson was a weak, cowardly, selfish creature, whose chief aim in
+life was to have things to suit himself.  When they ceased to be agreeable, he
+was ready for a change, without much regard for the means to his ends.  He had
+always foreseen the possibility of the event which had now taken place, but,
+like all self-indulgent natures, had hoped that he might escape detection.
+
+Alida, moreover, had won a far stronger hold upon him than he had once
+imagined possible.  He was terribly mortified and cast down by the result of
+his experiment, as he regarded it.  But the thought of a prison and hard labor
+speedily drew his mind away from this aspect of the affair.  He had been
+fairly caught, his lark was over, and he soon resolved that the easiest and
+safest way out of the scrape was the best way.  He therefore raised his head
+and came forward with a penitent air as he said: "It's natural I should be
+overwhelmed with shame at the position in which I find myself.  But I see the
+truth of your words, and I'll try to make it all right as far as I can.  I'll
+go back with you and Hannah to my old home.  I've got money in the bank, I'll
+sell out everything here, and I'll pay you, William, as far as I can, what
+you've spent.  Hannah is mighty good to let me off so easy, and she won't be
+sorry.  This man is witness to what I say," and the detective nodded.
+
+"Why, Ferguson," said Mr. Hackman effusively, "now you're talking like a man. 
+Come and kiss him, Hannah, and make it all up."
+
+"That's the way with you men," said the woman bitterly. "These things count
+for little.  Henry Ferguson must prove he's honest in what he says by deeds,
+not words.  I'll do as I've said if he acts square, and that's enough to start
+with."
+
+"All right," said Ferguson, glad enough to escape the caress. "I'll do as I
+say."
+
+He did do all he promised, and very promptly, too.  He was not capable of
+believing that a woman wronged as Alida had been would not prosecute him, and
+he was eager to escape to another state, and, in a certain measure, again to
+hide his identity under his own actual name.
+
+Meanwhile, how fared the poor creature who had fled, driven forth by her first
+wild impulse to escape from a false and terrible position?  With every step
+she took down the dimly lighted street, the abyss into which she had fallen
+seemed to grow deeper and darker.  She was overwhelmed with the magnitude of
+her misfortune.  She shunned the illumined thoroughfares with a half-crazed
+sense that every finger would be pointed at her.  Her final words, spoken to
+Ferguson, were the last clear promptings of her womanly nature.  After that,
+everything grew confused, except the impression of remediless disaster and
+shame.  She was incapable of forming any correct judgment concerning her
+position.  The thought of her pastor filled her with horror.  He, she thought,
+would take the same view which the woman had so brutally expressed--that in
+her eagerness to be married, she had brought to the parsonage an unknown man
+and had involved a clergyman in her own scandalous record.--It would all be in
+the papers, and her pastor's name mixed up in the affair.  She would rather
+die than subject him to such an ordeal.  Long after, when he learned the facts
+in the case, he looked at her very sadly as he asked: "Didn't you know me
+better than that?  Had I so failed in my preaching that you couldn't come
+straight to me?"
+
+She wondered afterward that she had not done this, but she was too morbid, too
+close upon absolute insanity, to do what was wise and safe.  She simply
+yielded to the wild impulse to escape, to cower, to hide from every human eye,
+hastening through the darkest, obscurest streets, not caring where.  In the
+confusion of her mind she would retrace her steps, and soon was utterly lost,
+wandering she knew not whither.  As it grew late, casual passers-by looked
+after her curiously, rough men spoke to her, and others jeered.  She only
+hastened on, driven by her desperate trouble like the wild, ragged clouds that
+were flying across the stormy March sky.
+
+At last a policeman said gruffly, "You've passed me twice.  You can't be
+roaming the streets at this time of night.  Why don't you go home?"
+
+Standing before him and wringing her hands, she moaned, "I have no home."
+
+"Where did you come from?"
+
+"Oh, I can't tell you! Take me to any place where a woman will be safe."
+
+"I can't take you to any place now but the station house."
+
+"But can I be alone there?  I won't be put with anybody?"
+
+"No, no; of course not!  You'll be better off there.  Come along. 'Taint far."
+
+She walked beside him without a word.
+
+"You'd better tell me something of your story.  Perhaps I can do more for you
+in the morning."
+
+"I can't.  I'm a stranger.  I haven't any friends in town."
+
+"Well, well, the sergeant will see what can be done in the morning.  You've
+been up to some foolishness, I suppose, and you'd better tell the whole story
+to the sergeant."
+
+She soon entered the station house and was locked up in a narrow cell.  She
+heard the grating of the key in the lock with a sense of relief, feeling that
+she had at least found a temporary place of refuge and security.  A hard board
+was the only couch it possessed, but the thought of sleep did not enter her
+mind.  Sitting down, she buried her face in her hands and rocked back and
+forth in agony and distraction until day dawned.  At last, someone--she felt
+she could not raise her eyes to his face--brought her some breakfast and
+coffee.  She drank the latter, but left the food untasted.  Finally, she was
+led to the sergeant's private room and told that she must give an account of
+herself. "If you can't or won't tell a clear story," the officer threatened,
+"you'll have to go before the justice in open court, and he may commit you to
+prison.  If you'll tell the truth now, it may be that I can discharge you. 
+You had no business to be wandering about the streets like a vagrant or worse;
+but if you were a stranger or lost and hadn't sense enough to go where you'd
+be cared for, I can let you go."
+
+"Oh!" said Alida, again wringing her hands and looking at the officer with
+eyes so full of misery and fear that he began to soften, "I don't know where
+to go."
+
+"Haven't you a friend or acquaintance in town?"
+
+"Not one that I can go to!"
+
+"Why don't you tell me your story?  Then I'll know what to do, and perhaps can
+help you.  You don't look like a depraved woman."
+
+"I'm not.  God knows I'm not!"
+
+"Well, my poor woman, I've got to act in view of what I know, not what God
+knows."
+
+"If I tell my story, will I have to give names?"
+
+"No, not necessarily.  It would be best, though."
+
+"I can't do that, but I'll tell you the truth.  I will swear it on the Bible 
+I married someone.  A good minister married us.  The man deceived me.  He was
+already married, and last night his wife came to my happy home and proved
+before the man whom I thought my husband that I was no wife at all.  He
+couldn't, didn't deny it.  Oh!  Oh!  Oh!"  And she again rocked back and forth
+in uncontrollable anguish. "That's all," she added brokenly. "I had no right
+to be near him or her any longer, and I rushed out.  I don't remember much
+more.  My brain seemed on fire.  I just walked and walked till I was brought
+here."
+
+"Well, well!" said the sergeant sympathetically, "you have been treated badly,
+outrageously; but you are not to blame unless you married the man hastily and
+foolishly."
+
+"That's what everyone will think, but it don't seem to me that I did.  It's a
+long story, and I can't tell it."
+
+"But you ought to tell it, my poor woman.  You ought to sue the man for
+damages and send him to State prison."
+
+"No, no!" cried Alida passionately. "I don't want to see him again, and I
+won't go to a court before people unless I am dragged there."
+
+The sergeant looked up at the policeman who had arrested her and said, "This
+story is not contrary to anything you saw?"
+
+"No, sir; she was wandering about and seemed half out of her mind."
+
+"Well, then, I can let you go."
+
+"But I don't know where to go," she replied, looking at him with hunted,
+hollow eyes. "I feel as if I were going to be sick.  Please don't turn me into
+the streets.  I'd rather go back to the cell--"
+
+"That won't answer.  There's no place that I can send you to except the
+poorhouse.  Haven't you any money?"
+
+"No, sir.  I just rushed away and left everything when I learned the truth."
+
+"Tom Watterly's hotel is the only place for her," said the policeman with a
+nod.
+
+"Oh, I can't go to a hotel."
+
+"He means the almshouse," explained the sergeant. "What is your name?"
+
+"Alida--that's all now.  Yes, I'm a pauper and I can't work just yet.  I'll be
+safe there, won't I?"
+
+"Certainly, safe as in your mother's house."
+
+"Oh, mother, mother; thank God, you are dead!"
+
+"Well, I AM sorry for you," said the sergeant kindly. "'Taint often we have so
+sad a case as yours.  If you say so, I'll send for Tom Watterly, and he and
+his wife will take charge of you.  After a few days, your mind will get
+quieter and clearer, and then you'll prosecute the man who wronged you."
+
+"I'll go to the poorhouse until I can do better," she replied wearily. "Now,
+if you please, I'll return to my cell where I can be alone."
+
+"Oh, we can give you a better room than that," said the sergeant. "Show her
+into the waiting room, Tim.  If you prosecute, we can help you with our
+testimony.  Goodbye, and may you have better days!"
+
+Watterly was telegraphed to come down with a conveyance for the almshouse was
+in a suburb.  In due time he appeared, and was briefly told Alida's story.  He
+swore a little at the "mean cuss," the author of all the trouble, and then
+took the stricken woman to what all his acquaintances facetiously termed his
+"hotel."
+
+
+Chapter XI. Baffled
+
+In the general consciousness Nature is regarded as feminine, and even those
+who love her most will have to adopt Mrs. Mumpson's oft-expressed opinion of
+the sex and admit that she is sometimes a "peculiar female."  During the month
+of March, in which our story opens, there was scarcely any limit to her
+varying moods.  It would almost appear that she was taking a mysterious
+interest in Holcroft's affairs; but whether it was a kindly interest or not,
+one might be at a loss to decide.  When she caught him away from home, she
+pelted him with the coldest of rain and made his house, with even Mrs. Mumpson
+and Jane abiding there, seem a refuge.  In the morning after the day on which
+he had brought, or in a sense had carted, Mrs. Wiggins to his domicile, Nature
+was evidently bent on instituting contrasts between herself and the rival
+phases of femininity with which the farmer was compelled to associate.  It may
+have been that she had another motive and was determined to keep her humble
+worshiper at her feet, and to render it impossible for him to make the changes
+toward which he had felt himself driven.
+
+Being an early riser he was up with the sun, and the sun rose so serenely and
+smiled so benignly that Holcroft's clouded brow cleared in spite of all that
+had happened or could take place.  The rain, which had brought such discomfort
+the night before, had settled the ground and made it comparatively firm to his
+tread.  The southern breeze which fanned his cheek was as soft as the air of
+May.  He remembered that it was Sunday, and that beyond feeding his stock and
+milking, he would have nothing to do.  He exulted in the unusual mildness and
+thought, with an immense sense of relief, "I can stay outdoors nearly all
+day."  He resolved to let his help kindle the fire and get breakfast as they
+could, and to keep out of their way.  Whatever changes the future might bring,
+he would have one more long day in rambling about his fields and in thinking
+over the past.  Feeling that there need be no haste about anything, he
+leisurely inhaled the air, fragrant from springing grass, and listened with a
+vague, undefined pleasure to the ecstatic music of the bluebirds,
+song-sparrows, and robins.  If anyone had asked him why he liked to hear them,
+he would have replied, "I'm used to 'em.  When they come, I know that plowing
+and planting time is near."
+
+It must be admitted that Holcroft's enjoyment of spring was not very far
+removed from that of the stock in his barnyard.  All the animal creation
+rejoices in the returning sun and warmth.  A subtle, powerful influence sets
+the blood in more rapid motion, kindles new desires, and awakens a glad
+expectancy.  All that is alive becomes more thoroughly alive and existence in
+itself is a pleasure.  Spring had always brought to the farmer quickened
+pulses, renewed activity and hopefulness, and he was pleased to find that he
+was not so old and cast down that its former influence had spent itself. 
+Indeed, it seemed that never before had his fields, his stock, and outdoor
+work--and these comprised Nature to him--been so attractive.  They remained
+unchanged amid the sad changes which had clouded his life, and his heart clung
+more tenaciously than ever to old scenes and occupations.  They might not
+bring him happiness again, but he instinctively felt that they might insure a
+comfort and peace with which he could be content.
+
+At last he went to the barn and began his work, doing everything slowly, and
+getting all the solace he could from the tasks.  The horses whinnied their
+welcome and he rubbed their noses caressingly as he fed them.  The cows came
+briskly to the rack in which he foddered them in pleasant weather, and when he
+scratched them between the horns they turned their mild, Juno-like eyes upon
+him with undisguised affection.  The chickens, clamoring for their breakfast,
+followed so closely that he had to be careful where he stepped.  Although he
+knew that all this good will was based chiefly on the hope of food and the
+remembrance of it in the past, nevertheless it soothed and pleased him.  He
+was in sympathy with this homely life; it belonged to him and was dependent on
+him; it made him honest returns for his care.  Moreover, it was agreeably
+linked with the past.  There were quiet cows which his wife had milked,
+clucking biddies which she had lifted from nests with their downy broods.  He
+looked at them wistfully, and was wondering if they ever missed the presence
+that he regretted so deeply, when he became conscious that Jane's eyes were
+upon him.  How long she had been watching him he did not know, but she merely
+said, "Breakfast's ready," and disappeared.
+
+With a sigh he went to his room to perform his ablutions, remembering with a
+slight pang how his wife always had a basin and towel ready for him in the
+kitchen.  In the breaking up of just such homely customs, he was continually
+reminded of his loss.
+
+On awakening to the light of this Sabbath morning, Mrs. Mumpson had thought
+deeply and reasoned everything out again.  She felt that it must be an
+eventful day and that there was much to be accomplished.  In the first place
+there was Mrs. Wiggins.  She disapproved of her decidedly. "She isn't the sort
+of person that I would prefer to superintend," she remarked to Jane while
+making a toilet which she deemed befitting the day, "and the hour will
+assuredly come when Mr. Holcroft will look upon her in the light that I do. 
+He will eventually realize that I cannot be brought in such close relationship
+with a pauper.  Not that the relationship is exactly close, but then I shall
+have to speak to her--in brief, to superintend her.  My eyes will be offended
+by her vast proportions and uncouth appearance.  The floor creaks beneath her
+tread and affects my nerves seriously.  Of course, while she is here, I shall
+zealously, as befits one in my responserble position, try to render useful
+such service as she can perform.  But then, the fact that I disapprove of her
+must soon become evident.  When it is discovered that I only tolerate her,
+there will be a change.  I cannot show my disapproval very strongly today for
+this is a day set apart for sacred things, and Mrs. Viggins, as she called
+herself,--I cannot imagine a Mr. Viggins for no man in his senses could have
+married such a creature,--as I was saying, Mrs. Viggins is not at all sacred,
+and I must endeavor to abstract my mind from her till tomorrow, as far as
+posserble.  My first duty today is to induce Mr. Holcroft to take us to
+church.  It will give the people of Oakville such a pleasing impression to see
+us driving to church.  Of course, I may fail, Mr. Holcroft is evidently a
+hardened man.  All the influences of his life have been adverse to spiritual
+development, and it may require some weeks of my influence to soften him and
+awaken yearnings for what he has not yet known."
+
+"He may be yearnin' for breakfast," Jane remarked, completing her toilet by
+tying her little pigtail braid with something that had once been a bit of
+black ribbon, but was now a string. "You'd better come down soon and help."
+
+"If Mrs. Viggins cannot get breakfast, I would like to know what she is here
+for" continued Mrs. Mumpson loftily, and regardless of Jane's departure. "I
+shall decline to do menial work any longer, especially on this sacred day, and
+after I have made my toilet for church.  Mr. Holcroft has had time to think. 
+My disapproval was manifest last night and it has undoubtedly occurred to him
+that he has not conformed to the proprieties of life.  Indeed, I almost fear I
+shall have to teach him what the proprieties of life are.  He witnessed my
+emotions when he spoke as he should not have spoken to ME.  But I must make
+allowances for his unregenerate state.  He was cold, and wet, and hungry last
+night, and men are unreasonerble at such times.  I shall now heap coals of
+fire upon his head.  I shall show that I am a meek, forgiving Christian woman,
+and he will relent, soften, and become penitent.  Then will be my
+opportunity," and she descended to the arena which should witness her efforts.
+
+During the period in which Mrs. Mumpson had indulged in these lofty
+reflections and self-communings, Mrs. Wiggins had also arisen.  I am not sure
+whether she had thought of anything in particular or not.  She may have had
+some spiritual longings which were not becoming to any day of the week.  Being
+a woman of deeds, rather than of thought, probably not much else occurred to
+her beyond the duty of kindling the fire and getting breakfast.  Jane came
+down, and offered to assist, but was cleared out with no more scruple than if
+Mrs. Wiggins had been one of the much-visited relatives.
+
+"The hidee," she grumbled, "of 'avin' sich a little trollop round hunder my
+feet!"
+
+Jane, therefore, solaced herself by watching the "cheap girl" till her mother
+appeared.
+
+Mrs. Mumpson sailed majestically in and took the rocking chair, mentally
+thankful that it had survived the crushing weight imposed upon it the evening
+before.  Mrs. Wiggins did not drop a courtesy.  Indeed, not a sign of
+recognition passed over her vast, immobile face.  Mrs. Mumpson was a little
+embarrassed. "I hardly know how to comport myself toward that female," she
+thought. "She is utterly uncouth.  Her manners are unmistakerbly those of a
+pauper.  I think I will ignore her today.  I do not wish my feelings ruffled
+or put out of harmony with the sacred duties and motives which actuate me."
+
+Mrs. Mumpson therefore rocked gently, solemnly, and strange to say, silently,
+and Mrs. Wiggins also proceeded with her duties, but not in silence, for
+everything in the room trembled and clattered at her tread.  Suddenly she
+turned on Jane and said, "'Ere, you little baggage, go and tell the master
+breakfast's ready."
+
+Mrs. Mumpson sprang from her chair, and with a voice choked with indignation,
+gasped, "Do you dare address my offspring thus?"
+
+"Yer vat?"
+
+"My child, my daughter, who is not a pauper, but the offspring of a most
+respecterble woman and respecterbly connected.  I'm amazed, I'm dumfoundered,
+I'm--"
+
+"Ye're a bit daft, hi'm a-thinkin'."  Then to Jane, "Vy don't ye go an' hearn
+yer salt?"
+
+"Jane, I forbid--"  But it had not taken Jane half a minute to decide between
+the now jarring domestic powers, and henceforth she would be at Mrs. Wiggins'
+beck and call. "She can do somethin'," the child muttered, as she stole upon
+Holcroft.
+
+Mrs. Mumpson sank back in her chair, but her mode of rocking betokened a
+perturbed spirit. "I will restrain myself till tomorrow, and then--"  She
+shook her head portentously and waited till the farmer appeared, feeling
+assured that Mrs. Wiggins would soon be taught to recognize her station.  When
+breakfast was on the table, she darted to her place behind the coffeepot, for
+she felt that there was no telling what this awful Mrs. Wiggins might not
+assume during this day of sacred restraint.  But the ex-pauper had no thought
+of presumption in her master's presence, and the rocking chair again
+distracted Mrs. Mumpson's nerves as it creaked under an unwonted weight.
+
+Holcroft took his seat in silence.  The widow again bowed her head devoutly,
+and sighed deeply when observing that the farmer ignored her suggestion.
+
+"I trust that you feel refreshed after your repose," she said benignly.
+
+"I do."
+
+"It is a lovely morning--a morning, I may add, befitting the sacred day. 
+Nature is at peace and suggests that we and all should be at peace."
+
+"There's nothing I like more, Mrs. Mumpson, unless it is quiet."
+
+"I feel that way, myself.  You don't know what restraint I have put upon
+myself that the sacred quiet of this day might not be disturbed.  I have had
+strong provercation since I entered this apartment.  I will forbear to speak
+of it till tomorrow in order that there may be quietness and that our minds
+may be prepared for worship.  I feel that it would be unseemly for us to enter
+a house of worship with thoughts of strife in our souls.  At precisely what
+moment do you wish me to be ready for church?"
+
+"I am not going to church, Mrs. Mumpson."
+
+"Not going to church!  I--I--scarcely understand.  Worship is such a sacred
+duty--"
+
+"You and Jane certainly have a right to go to church, and since it is your
+wish, I'll take you down to Lemuel Weeks' and you can go with them."
+
+"I don't want to go to Cousin Lemuel's, nor to church, nuther," Jane
+protested.
+
+"Why, Mr. Holcroft," began the widow sweetly, "after you've once harnessed up
+it will take but a little longer to keep on to the meeting house.  It would
+appear so seemly for us to drive thither, as a matter of course.  It would be
+what the communerty expects of us.  This is not our day, that we should spend
+it carnally.  We should be spiritually-minded.  We should put away things of
+earth.  Thoughts of business and any unnecessary toil should be abhorrent.  I
+have often thought that there was too much milking done on Sunday among
+farmers.  I know they say it is essential, but they all seem so prone to
+forget that but one thing is needful.  I feel it borne in upon my mind, Mr.
+Holcroft, that I should plead with you to attend divine worship and seek an
+uplifting of your thoughts.  You have no idea how differently the day may end,
+or what emotions may be aroused if you place yourself under the droppings of
+the sanctuary."
+
+"I'm like Jane, I don't wish to go," said Mr. Holcroft nervously.
+
+"But my dear Mr. Holcroft,"--the farmer fidgeted under this address,--"the
+very essence of true religion is to do what we don't wish to do.  We are to
+mortify the flesh and thwart the carnal mind.  The more thorny the path of
+self-denial is, the more certain it's the right path. "I've already entered
+upon it," she continued, turning a momentary glare upon Mrs. Wiggins. "Never
+before was a respecterble woman so harrowed and outraged; but I am calm; I am
+endeavoring to maintain a frame of mind suiterble to worship, and I feel it my
+bounden duty to impress upon you that worship is a necessity to every human
+being.  My conscience would not acquit me if I did not use all my influence--"
+
+"Very well, Mrs. Mumpson, you and your conscience are quits.  You have used
+all your influence.  I will do as I said--take you to Lemuel Weeks'--and you
+can go to church with his family," and he rose from the table.
+
+"But Cousin Lemuel is also painfully blind to his spiritual interests--"
+
+Holcroft did not stay to listen and was soon engaged in the morning milking. 
+Jane flatly declared that she would not go to Cousin Lemuel's or to church.
+"It don't do me no good, nor you, nuther," she sullenly declared to her
+mother.
+
+Mrs. Mumpson now resolved upon a different line of tactics.  Assuming a lofty,
+spiritual air, she commanded Jane to light a fire in the parlor, and retired
+thither with the rocking chair.  The elder widow looked after her and
+ejaculated, "Vell, hif she haint the craziest loon hi hever 'eard talk.  Hif
+she vas blind she might 'a' seen that the master didn't vant hany sich
+lecturin' clack."
+
+Having kindled the fire, the child was about to leave the room when her mother
+interposed and said solemnly, "Jane, sit down and keep Sunday."
+
+"I'm going to help Mrs. Wiggins if she'll let me."
+
+"You will not so demean yourself.  I wish you to have no relations whatever
+with that female in the kitchen.  If you had proper self-respect, you would
+never speak to her again."
+
+"We aint visitin' here.  If I can't work indoors, I'll tell him I'll work
+outdoors."
+
+"It's not proper for you to work today.  I want you to sit there in the corner
+and learn the Fifth Commandment."
+
+"Aint you goin' to Cousin Lemuel's?"
+
+"On mature reflection, I have decided to remain at home."
+
+"I thought you would if you had any sense left.  You know well enough we aint
+wanted down there.  I'll go tell him not to hitch up."
+
+"Well, I will permit you to do so.  Then return to your Sunday task."
+
+"I'm goin' to mind him," responded the child.  She passed rapidly and
+apprehensively through the kitchen, but paused on the doorstep to make some
+overtures to Mrs. Wiggins.  If that austere dame was not to be propitiated, a
+line of retreat was open to the barn. "Say," she began, to attract attention.
+
+"Vell, young-un," replied Mrs. Wiggins, rendered more pacific by her
+breakfast.
+
+"Don't you want me to wash up the dishes and put 'em away?  I know how."
+
+"Hi'll try ye.  Hif ye breaks hanythink--" and the old woman nodded volumes at
+the child.
+
+"I'll be back in a minute," said Jane.  A moment later she met Holcroft
+carrying two pails of milk from the barnyard.  He was about to pass without
+noticing her, but she again secured attention by her usual preface, "Say,"
+when she had a somewhat extended communication to make.
+
+"Come to the dairy room, Jane, and say your say there," said Holcroft not
+unkindly.
+
+"She aint goin' to Cousin Lemuel's," said the girl, from the door.
+
+"What is she going to do."
+
+"Rock in the parlor.  Say, can't I help Mrs. Wiggins wash up the dishes and do
+the work?"
+
+"Certainly, why not?"
+
+"Mother says I must sit in the parlor 'n' learn Commandments 'n' keep Sunday."
+
+"Well, Jane, which do you think you ought to do?"
+
+"I think I oughter work, and if you and Mrs. Wiggins will let me, I will work
+in spite of mother."
+
+"I think that you and your mother both should help do the necessary work
+today.  There won't be much."
+
+"If I try and help Mrs. Wiggins, mother'll bounce out at me.  She shook me
+last night after I went upstairs, and she boxed my ears 'cause I wanted to
+keep the kitchen fire up last night."
+
+"I'll go with you to the kitchen and tell Mrs. Wiggins to let you help, and I
+won't let your mother punish you again unless you do wrong."
+
+Mrs. Wiggins, relying on Jane's promise of help, had sat down to the solace of
+her pipe for a few minutes, but was about to thrust it hastily away on seeing
+Holcroft.  He reassured her by saying good-naturedly, "No need of that, my
+good woman.  Sit still and enjoy your pipe.  I like to smoke myself.  Jane
+will help clear away things and I wish her to.  You'll find she's quite handy. 
+By the way, have you all the tobacco you want?"
+
+"Vell, now, master, p'raps ye know the 'lowance down hat the poor-us vasn't
+sich as ud keep a body in vat ye'd call satisfyin' smokin'.  Hi never 'ad
+henough ter keep down the 'ankerin'."
+
+"I suppose that's so.  You shall have half of my stock, and when I go to town
+again, I'll get you a good supply.  I guess I'll light my pipe, too, before
+starting for a walk."
+
+"Bless yer 'art, master, ye makes a body comf'terble.  Ven hi smokes, hi feels
+more hat 'ome and kind o'contented like.  An hold 'ooman like me haint got
+much left to comfort 'er but 'er pipe."
+
+"Jane!" called Mrs. Mumpson sharply from the parlor.  As there was no answer,
+the widow soon appeared in the kitchen door.  Smoking was one of the
+unpardonable sins in Mrs. Mumpson's eyes; and when she saw Mrs. Wiggins
+puffing comfortably away and Holcroft lighting his pipe, while Jane cleared
+the table, language almost failed her.  She managed to articulate, "Jane, this
+atmosphere is not fit for you to breathe on this sacred day. I wish you to
+share my seclusion."
+
+"Mrs. Mumpson, I have told her to help Mrs. Wiggins in the necessary work,"
+Holcroft interposed.
+
+"Mr. Holcroft, you don't realize--men never do--Jane is my offspring, and--"
+
+"Oh, if you put it that way, I shan't interfere between mother and child.  But
+I suppose you and Jane came here to work."
+
+"If you will enter the parlor, I will explain to you fully my views, and--"
+
+"Oh, please excuse me!" said Holcroft, hastily passing out. "I was just
+starting for a walk--I'm bound to have one more day to myself on the old
+place," he muttered as he bent his steps toward an upland pasture.
+
+Jane, seeing that her mother was about to pounce upon her, ran behind Mrs.
+Wiggins, who slowly rose and began a progress toward the irate widow,
+remarking as she did so, "Hi'll just shut the door 'twixt ye and yer
+hoffspring, and then ye kin say yer prayers hon the t'other side."
+
+Mrs. Mumpson was so overcome at the turn affairs had taken on this day, which
+was to witness such progress in her plans and hopes, as to feel the absolute
+necessity of a prolonged season of thought and soliloquy, and she relapsed,
+without further protest, into the rocking chair.
+
+
+Chapter XII. Jane
+
+Holcroft was not long in climbing to a sunny nook whence he could see not only
+his farm and dwelling, but also the Oakville valley, and the little white
+spire of the distant meeting house.  He looked at this last-named object
+wistfully and very sadly.  Mrs. Mumpson's tirade about worship had been
+without effect, but the memories suggested by the church were bitter-sweet
+indeed.  It belonged to the Methodist denomination, and Holcroft had been
+taken, or had gone thither, from the time of his earliest recollection.  He
+saw himself sitting between his father and mother, a round-faced urchin to
+whom the sermon was unintelligible, but to whom little Bessie Jones in the
+next pew was a fact, not only intelligible, but very interesting.  She would
+turn around and stare at him until he smiled, then she would giggle until her
+mother brought her right-about-face with considerable emphasis.  After this,
+he saw the little boy--could it have been himself?--nodding, swaying, and
+finally slumbering peacefully, with his head on his mother's lap, until shaken
+into sufficient consciousness to be half dragged, half led, to the door.  Once
+in the big, springless farm wagon he was himself again, looking eagerly around
+to catch another glimpse of Bessie Jones.  Then he was a big, irreverent boy,
+shyly and awkwardly bent on mischief in the same old meeting house.  Bessie
+Jones no longer turned and stared at him, but he exultingly discovered that he
+could still make her giggle on the sly.  Years passed, and Bessie was his
+occasional choice for a sleigh-ride when the long body of some farm wagon was
+placed on runners, and boys and girls--young men and women, they almost
+thought themselves--were packed in like sardines.  Something like
+self-reproach smote Holcroft even now, remembering how he had allowed his
+fancy much latitude at this period, paying attention to more than one girl
+besides Bessie, and painfully undecided which he liked best.
+
+Then had come the memorable year which had opened with a protracted meeting. 
+He and Bessie Jones had passed under conviction at the same time, and on the
+same evening had gone forward to the anxious seat.  From the way in which she
+sobbed, one might have supposed that the good, simple-hearted girl had
+terrible burdens on her conscience; but she soon found hope, and her tears
+gave place to smiles.  Holcroft, on the contrary, was terribly cast down and
+unable to find relief.  He felt that he had much more to answer for than
+Bessie; he accused himself of having been a rather coarse, vulgar boy; he had
+made fun of sacred things in that very meeting house more times than he liked
+to think of, and now for some reason could think of nothing else.
+
+He could not shed tears or get up much emotion; neither could he rid himself
+of the dull weight at heart.  The minister, the brethren and sisters, prayed
+for him and over him, but nothing removed his terrible inertia.  He became a
+familiar form on the anxious seat for there was a dogged persistence in his
+nature which prevented him from giving up; but at the close of each meeting he
+went home in a state of deeper dejection.  Sometimes, in returning, he was
+Bessie Jones' escort, and her happiness added to his gall and bitterness.  One
+moonlight night they stopped under the shadow of a pine near her father's
+door, and talked over the matter a few moments before parting.  Bessie was
+full of sympathy which she hardly knew how to express.  Unconsciously, in her
+earnestness--how well he remembered the act!--she laid her hand on his arm as
+she said, "James, I guess I know what's the matter with you.  In all your
+seeking you are thinking only of yourself--how bad you've been and all that. 
+I wouldn't think of myself and what I was any more, if I was you.  You aint so
+awful bad, James, that I'd turn a cold shoulder to you; but you might think I
+was doing just that if ye stayed away from me and kept saying to yourself, 'I
+aint fit to speak to Bessie Jones.'"
+
+Her face had looked sweet and compassionate, and her touch upon his arm had
+conveyed the subtle magic of sympathy.  Under her homely logic, the truth had
+burst upon him like sunshine.  In brief, he had turned from his own shadow and
+was in the light.  He remembered how in his deep feeling he had bowed his head
+on her shoulder and murmured, "Oh, Bessie, Heaven bless you!  I see it all."
+
+He no longer went to the anxious seat.  With this young girl, and many others,
+he was taken into the church on probation.  Thereafter, his fancy never
+wandered again, and there was no other girl in Oakville for him but Bessie. 
+In due time, he had gone with her to yonder meeting house to be married.  It
+had all seemed to come about as a matter of course.  He scarcely knew when he
+became formally engaged.  They "kept company" together steadfastly for a
+suitable period, and that seemed to settle it in their own and everybody
+else's mind.
+
+There had been no change in Bessie's quiet, constant soul.  After her words
+under the shadow of the pine tree she seemed to find it difficult to speak of
+religious subjects, even to her husband; but her simple faith had been
+unwavering, and she had entered into rest without fear or misgiving.
+
+Not so her husband.  He had his spiritual ups and downs, but, like herself,
+was reticent.  While she lived, only a heavy storm kept them from "going to
+meeting," but with Holcroft worship was often little more than a form, his
+mind being on the farm and its interests.  Parents and relatives had died, and
+the habit of seclusion from neighborhood and church life had grown upon them
+gradually and almost unconsciously.
+
+For a long time after his wife's death Holcroft had felt that he did not wish
+to see anyone who would make references to his loss.
+
+He shrank from formal condolences as he would from the touch of a diseased
+nerve.  When the minister called, he listened politely but silently to a
+general exhortation; then muttered, when left alone, "It's all as he says, I
+suppose; but somehow his words are like the medicines Bessie took--they don't
+do any good."
+
+He kept up the form of his faith and a certain vague hope until the night on
+which he drove forth the Irish revelers from his home.  In remembrance of his
+rage and profanity on that occasion, he silently and in dreary misgiving
+concluded that he should not, even to himself, keep up the pretense of
+religion any longer. "I've fallen from grace--that is, if I ever had any"--was
+a thought which did much to rob him of courage to meet his other trials. 
+Whenever he dwelt on these subjects, doubts, perplexities, and resentment at
+his misfortunes so thronged his mind that he was appalled; so he strove to
+occupy himself with the immediate present.
+
+Today, however, in recalling the past, his thoughts would question the future
+and the outcome of his experiences.  In accordance with his simple, downright
+nature, he muttered, "I might as well face the truth and have done with it.  I
+don't know whether I'll ever see my wife again or not; I don't know whether
+God is for me or against me.  Sometimes, I half think there isn't any God.  I
+don't know what will become of me when I die.  I'm sure of only one
+thing--while I do live I could take comfort in working the old place."
+
+In brief, without ever having heard of the term, he was an agnostic, but not
+one of the self-complacent, superior type who fancy that they have developed
+themselves beyond the trammels of faith and are ever ready to make the world
+aware of their progress.
+
+At last he recognized that his long reverie was leading to despondency and
+weakness; he rose, shook himself half angrily, and strode toward the house.
+"I'm here, and here I'm going to stay," he growled. "As long as I'm on my own
+land, it's nobody's business what I am or how I feel.  If I can't get decent,
+sensible women help, I'll close up my dairy and live here alone.  I certainly
+can make enough to support myself."
+
+Jane met him with a summons to dinner, looking apprehensively at his stern,
+gloomy face.  Mrs. Mumpson did not appear. "Call her," he said curtly.
+
+The literal Jane returned from the parlor and said unsympathetically, "She's
+got a hank'chif to her eyes and says she don't want no dinner."
+
+"Very well," he replied, much relieved.
+
+Apparently he did not want much dinner, either, for he soon started out again. 
+Mrs. Wiggins was not utterly wanting in the intuitions of her sex, and said
+nothing to break in upon her master's abstraction.
+
+In the afternoon Holcroft visited every nook and corner of his farm, laying
+out, he hoped, so much occupation for both hands and thoughts as to render him
+proof against domestic tribulations.
+
+He had not been gone long before Mrs. Mumpson called in a plaintive voice,
+"Jane!"
+
+The child entered the parlor warily, keeping open a line of retreat to the
+door. "You need not fear me," said her mother, rocking pathetically. "My
+feelings are so hurt and crushed that I can only bemoan the wrongs from which
+I suffer.  You little know, Jane, you little know a mother's heart."
+
+"No," assented Jane. "I dunno nothin' about it."
+
+"What wonder, then that I weep, when even my child is so unnatural!"
+
+"I dunno how to be anything else but what I be," replied the girl in
+self-defense.
+
+"If you would only yield more to my guidance and influence, Jane, the future
+might be brighter for us both.  If you had but stored up the Fifth Commandment
+in memory--but I forbear.  You cannot so far forget your duty as not to tell
+me how HE behaved at dinner."
+
+"He looked awful glum, and hardly said a word."
+
+"Ah-h!" exclaimed the widow, "the spell is working."
+
+"If you aint a-workin' tomorrow, there'll be a worse spell," the girl
+remarked.
+
+"That will do, Jane, that will do.  You little understand--how should you? 
+Please keep an eye on him, and let me know how he looks and what he is doing,
+and whether his face still wears a gloomy or a penitent aspect.  Do as I bid
+you, Jane, and you may unconsciously secure your own well-being by obedience."
+
+Watching anyone was a far more congenial task to the child than learning the
+Commandments, and she hastened to comply.  Moreover, she had the strongest
+curiosity in regard to Holcroft herself.  She felt that he was the arbiter of
+her fate.  So untaught was she that delicacy and tact were unknown qualities. 
+Her one hope of pleasing was in work.  She had no power of guessing that sly
+espionage would counterbalance such service.  Another round of visiting was
+dreaded above all things; she was, therefore, exceedingly anxious about the
+future. "Mother may be right," she thought. "P'raps she can make him marry
+her, so we needn't go away any more.  P'raps she's taken the right way to
+bring a man around and get him hooked, as Cousin Lemuel said.  If I was goin'
+to hook a man though, I'd try another plan than mother's.  I'd keep my mouth
+shut and my eyes open.  I'd see what he wanted and do it, even 'fore he spoke. 
+'Fi's big anuf I bet I could hook a man quicker'n she can by usin' her tongue
+'stead of her hands."
+
+Jane's scheme was not so bad a one but that it might be tried to advantage by
+those so disposed.  Her matrimonial prospects, however, being still far in the
+future, it behooved her to make her present existence as tolerable as
+possible.  She knew how much depended on Holcroft, and was unaware of any
+other method of learning his purposes except that of watching him.  Both
+fearing and fascinated, she dogged his steps most of the afternoon, but saw
+nothing to confirm her mother's view that any spell was working.  She scarcely
+understood why he looked so long at field, thicket, and woods, as if he saw
+something invisible to her.
+
+In planning future work and improvements, the farmer had attained a quieter
+and more genial frame of mind. "When, therefore, he sat down and in glancing
+about saw Jane crouching behind a low hemlock, he was more amused than
+irritated.  He had dwelt on his own interests so long that he was ready to
+consider even Jane's for a while. "Poor child!" he thought, "she doesn't know
+any better and perhaps has even been taught to do such things.  I think I'll
+surprise her and draw her out a little.  Jane, come here," he called.
+
+The girl sprang to her feet, and hesitated whether to fly or obey. "Don't be
+afraid," added Holcroft. "I won't scold you.  Come!"
+
+She stole toward him like some small, wild, fearful animal in doubt of its
+reception. "Sit down there on that rock," he said.
+
+She obeyed with a sly, sidelong look, and he saw that she kept her feet
+gathered under her so as to spring away if he made the slightest hostile
+movement.
+
+"Jane, do you think it's right to watch people so?" he asked gravely.
+
+"She told me to."
+
+"Your mother?"
+
+The girl nodded.
+
+"But do you think it's right yourself?"
+
+"Dunno.  'Taint best if you get caught."
+
+"Well, Jane," said Holcroft, with something like a smile lurking in his
+deep-set eyes. "I don't think it's right at all.  I don't want you to watch me
+any more, no matter who tells you to.  Will you promise not to?"
+
+The child nodded.  She seemed averse to speaking when a sign would answer.
+
+"Can I go now?" she asked after a moment.
+
+"Not yet.  I want to ask you some questions.  Was anyone ever kind to you?"
+
+"I dunno.  I suppose so."
+
+"What would you call being kind to you?"
+
+"Not scoldin' or cuffin' me."
+
+"If I didn't scold or strike you, would you think I was kind, then?"
+
+She nodded; but after a moment's thought, said, "and if you didn't look as if
+you hated to see me round."
+
+"Do you think I've been kind to you?"
+
+"Kinder'n anybody else.  You sorter look at me sometimes as if I was a rat.  I
+don't s'pose you can help it, and I don't mind.  I'd ruther stay here and work
+than go a-visitin' again.  Why can't I work outdoors when there's nothin' for
+me to do in the house?"
+
+"Are you willing to work--to do anything you can?"
+
+Jane was not sufficiently politic to enlarge on her desire for honest toil and
+honest bread; she merely nodded.  Holcroft smiled as he asked, "Why are you so
+anxious to work?"
+
+"'Cause I won't feel like a stray cat in the house then.  I want to be
+some'ers where I've a right to be."
+
+"Wouldn't they let you work down at Lemuel Weeks'?"  She shook her head.
+
+"Why not?" he asked.
+
+"They said I wasn't honest; they said they couldn't trust me with things,
+'cause when I was hungry I took things to eat."
+
+"Was that the way you were treated at other places?"
+
+"Mostly."
+
+"Jane," asked Holcroft very kindly, "did anyone ever kiss you?"
+
+"Mother used to 'fore people.  It allus made me kinder sick."
+
+Holcroft shook his head as if this child was a problem beyond him, and for a
+time they sat together in silence.  At last he arose and said, "It's time to
+go home.  Now, Jane, don't follow me; walk openly at my side, and when you
+come to call me at any time, come openly, make a noise, whistle or sing as a
+child ought.  As long as you are with me, never do anything on the sly, and
+we'll get along well enough."
+
+She nodded and walked beside him.  At last, as if emboldened by his words, she
+broke out, "Say, if mother married you, you couldn't send us away, could you?"
+
+"Why do you ask such a question?" said Holcroft, frowning.
+
+"I was a-thinkin'--"
+
+"Well," he interrupted sternly, "never think or speak of such things again."
+
+The child had a miserable sense that she had angered him; she was also
+satisfied that her mother's schemes would be futile, and she scarcely spoke
+again that day.
+
+Holcroft was more than angry; he was disgusted.  That Mrs. Mumpson's design
+upon him was so offensively open that even this ignorant child understood it,
+and was expected to further it, caused such a strong revulsion in his mind
+that he half resolved to put them both in his market wagon on the morrow and
+take them back to their relatives.  His newly awakened sympathy for Jane
+quickly vanished.  If the girl and her mother had been repulsive from the
+first, they were now hideous, in view of their efforts to fasten themselves
+upon him permanently.  Fancy, then, the climax in his feelings when, as they
+passed the house, the front door suddenly opened and Mrs. Mumpson emerged with
+clasped hands and the exclamation, "Oh, how touching!  Just like father and
+child!"
+
+Without noticing the remark he said coldly as he passed, "Jane, go help Mrs.
+Wiggins get supper."
+
+His anger and disgust grew so strong as he hastily did his evening work that
+he resolved not to endanger his self-control by sitting down within earshot of
+Mrs. Mumpson.  As soon as possible, therefore, he carried the new stove to his
+room and put it up.  The widow tried to address him as he passed in and out,
+but he paid no heed to her.  At last, he only paused long enough at the
+kitchen door to say, "Jane, bring me some supper to my room.  Remember, you
+only are to bring it."
+
+Bewildered and abashed, Mrs. Mumpson rocked nervously. "I had looked for
+relentings this evening, a general softening," she murmured, "and I don't
+understand his bearing toward me."  Then a happy thought struck her. "I see, I
+see," she cried softly and ecstatically: "He is struggling with himself; he
+finds that he must either deny himself my society or yield at once.  The end
+is near."
+
+A little later she, too, appeared at the kitchen door and said, with serious
+sweetness, "Jane, you can also bring me MY supper to the parlor."
+
+Mrs. Wiggins shook with mirth in all her vast proportions as she remarked,
+"Jane, ye can bring me MY supper from the stove to the table 'ere, and then
+vait hon yeself."
+
+
+Chapter XIII. Not Wife, But Waif
+
+Tom Watterly's horse was the pride of his heart.  It was a bobtailed, rawboned
+animal, but, as Tom complacently remarked to Alida, "He can pass about
+anything on the road"--a boast that he let no chance escape of verifying.  It
+was a terrible ordeal to the poor woman to go dashing through the streets in
+an open wagon, feeling that every eye was upon her.  With head bowed down, she
+employed her failing strength in holding herself from falling out, yet almost
+wishing that she might be dashed against some object that would end her
+wretched life.  It finally occurred to Tom that the woman at his side might
+not, after her recent experience, share in his enthusiasm, and he pulled up
+remarking, with a rough effort at sympathy, "It's a cussed shame you've been
+treated so, and as soon as you're ready, I'll help you get even with the
+scamp."
+
+"I'm not well, sir," said Alida humbly. "I only ask for a quiet place where I
+can rest till strong enough to do some kind of work."
+
+"Well, well," said Tom kindly, "don't lose heart.  We'll do the best by you we
+can.  That aint saying very much, though, for we're full and running over."
+
+He soon drew rein at the poorhouse door and sprang out. "I--I--feel strange,"
+Alida gasped.
+
+Tom caught the fainting woman in his arms and shouted, "Here, Bill, Joe!  You
+lazy loons, where are you?"
+
+Three or four half wrecks of men shuffled to his assistance, and together they
+bore the unconscious woman to the room which was used as a sort of hospital. 
+Some old crones gathered around with such restoratives as they had at command. 
+Gradually the stricken woman revived, but as the whole miserable truth came
+back, she turned her face to the wall with a sinking of heart akin to despair. 
+At last, from sheer exhaustion, feverish sleep ensued, from which she often
+started with moans and low cries.  One impression haunted her--she was
+falling, ever falling into a dark, bottomless abyss.
+
+Hours passed in the same partial stupor, filled with phantoms and horrible
+dreams.  Toward evening, she aroused herself mechanically to take the broth
+Mrs. Watterly ordered her to swallow, then relapsed into the same lethargy. 
+Late in the night, she became conscious that someone was kneeling at her
+bedside and fondling her.  She started up with a slight cry.
+
+"Don't be afraid; it's only me, dear," said a quavering voice.
+
+In the dim rays of a night lamp, Alida saw an old woman with gray hair falling
+about her face and on her night robe.  At first, in her confused, feverish
+impressions, the poor waif was dumb with superstitious awe, and trembled
+between joy and fear.  Could her mother have come to comfort her in her sore
+extremity?
+
+"Put yer head on me ould withered breast," said the apparition, "an' ye'll
+know a mither's heart niver changes.  I"ve been a-lookin' for ye and expectin'
+ye these long, weary years, They said ye wouldn't come back--that I'd niver
+find ye ag'in; but I knowed I wud, and here ye are in me arms, me darlint. 
+Don't draw away from yer ould mither.  Don't ye be afeard or 'shamed loike. 
+No matter what ye've done or where ye've been or who ye've been with, a
+mither's heart welcomes ye back jist the same as when yes were a babby an'
+slept on me breast.  A mither's heart ud quench the fires o' hell.  I'd go
+inter the burnin' flames o' the pit an' bear ye out in me arms.  So niver
+fear.  Now that I've found ye, ye're safe.  Ye'll not run away from me ag'in. 
+I'll hould ye--I'll hould ye back," and the poor creature clasped Alida with
+such conclusive energy that she screamed from pain and terror.
+
+"Ye shall not get away from me, ye shall not go back to evil ways.  Whist,
+whist!  Be aisy and let me plead wid ye.  Think how many long, weary years
+I've looked for ye and waited for ye.  Niver have I slept night or day in me
+watchin'.  Ye may be so stained an' lost an' ruined that the whole wourld will
+scorn ye, yet not yer mither, not yer ould mither.  Oh, Nora, Nora, why did ye
+rin away from me?  Wasn't I koind?  No, no; ye cannot lave me ag'in," and she
+threw herself on Alida, whose disordered mind was tortured by what she heard. 
+Whether or not it was a more terrible dream than had yet oppressed her, she
+scarcely knew, but in the excess of her nervous horror she sent out a cry that
+echoed in every part of the large building.  Two old women rushed in and
+dragged Alida's persecutor screaming away.
+
+"That's allus the way o' it," she shrieked. "As soon as I find me Nora they
+snatches me and carries me off, and I have to begin me watchin' and waitin'
+and lookin' ag'in."
+
+Alida continued sobbing and trembling violently.  One of the awakened patients
+sought to assure her by saying, "Don't mind it so, miss.  It's only old crazy
+Kate.  Her daughter ran away from her years and years ago--how many no one
+knows--and when a young woman's brought here she thinks it's her lost Nora. 
+They oughtn't 'a' let her get out, knowin' you was here."
+
+For several days Alida's reason wavered.  The nervous shock of her sad
+experiences had been so great that it did not seem at all improbable that she,
+like the insane mother, might be haunted for the rest of her life by an
+overwhelming impression of something lost.  In her morbid, shaken mind she
+confounded the wrong she had received with guilt on her own part.  Eventually,
+she grew calmer and more sensible.  Although her conscience acquitted her of
+intentional evil, nothing could remove the deep-rooted conviction that she was
+shamed beyond hope of remedy.  For a time she was unable to rally from nervous
+prostration; meanwhile, her mind was preternaturally active, presenting every
+detail of the past until she was often ready to cry aloud in her despair.
+
+Tom Watterly took an unusual interest in her case and exhorted the visiting
+physician to do his best for her.  She finally began to improve, and with the
+first return of strength sought to do something with her feeble hands.  The
+bread of charity was not sweet.
+
+Although the place in which she lodged was clean, and the coarse, unvarying
+fare abundant, she shrank shuddering, with each day's clearer consciousness,
+from the majority of those about her.  Phases of life of which she had
+scarcely dreamed were the common topics of conversation.  In her mother she
+had learned to venerate gray hairs, and it was an awful shock to learn that so
+many of the feeble creatures about her were coarse, wicked, and evil-disposed. 
+How could their withered lips frame the words they spoke?  How could they
+dwell on subjects that were profanation, even to such wrecks of womanhood as
+themselves?
+
+Moreover, they persecuted her by their curiosity.  The good material in her
+apparel had been examined and commented on; her wedding ring had been seen and
+its absence soon noted, for Alida, after gaining the power to recall the past
+fully, had thrown away the metal lie, feeling that it was the last link in a
+chain binding her to a loathed and hated relationship.  Learning from their
+questions that the inmates of the almshouse did not know her history, she
+refused to reveal it, thus awakening endless surmises.  Many histories were
+made for her, the beldams vying with each other in constructing the worst one. 
+Poor Alida soon learned that there was public opinion even in an almshouse,
+and that she was under its ban.  In dreary despondency she thought, "They've
+found out about me.  If such creatures as these think I'm hardly fit to speak
+to, how can I ever find work among good, respectable people?"
+
+Her extreme depression, the coarse, vulgar, and uncharitable natures by which
+she was surrounded, retarded her recovery.  By her efforts to do anything in
+her power for others she disarmed the hostility of some of the women, and
+those that were more or less demented became fond of her; but the majority
+probed her wound by every look and word.  She was a saint compared with any of
+these, yet they made her envy their respectability.  She often thought, "Would
+to God that I was as old and ready to die as the feeblest woman here, if I
+could only hold up my head like her!"
+
+One day a woman who had a child left it sleeping in its rude wooden cradle and
+went downstairs.  The babe wakened and began to cry.  Alida took it up and
+found a strange solace in rocking it to sleep again upon her breast.  At last
+the mother returned, glared a moment into Alida's appealing eyes, then
+snatched the child away with the cruel words, "Don't ye touch my baby ag'in! 
+To think it ud been in the arms o' the loikes o'ye!"
+
+Alida went away and sobbed until her strength was gone.  She found that there
+were some others ostracized like herself, but they accepted their position as
+a matter of course--as if it belonged to them and was the least of their
+troubles.
+
+Her strength was returning, yet she was still feeble when she sent for Mrs.
+Watterly and asked, "Do you think I'm strong enough to take a place
+somewhere?"
+
+"You ought to know that better than me," was the chilly reply.
+
+"Do you--do you think I could get a place?  I would be willing to do any kind
+of honest work not beyond my strength."
+
+"You hardly look able to sit up straight.  Better wait till you're stronger. 
+I'll tell my husband.  If applications come, he'll see about it," and she
+turned coldly away.
+
+A day or two later Tom came and said brusquely, but not unkindly, "Don't like
+my hotel, hey?  What can you do?"
+
+"I'm used to sewing, but I'd try to do almost anything by which I could earn
+my living."
+
+"Best thing to do is to prosecute that scamp and make him pay you a good round
+sum."
+
+She shook her head decidedly. "I don't wish to see him again.  I don't wish to
+go before people and have the--the--past talked about.  I'd like a place with
+some kind, quiet people who keep no other help.  Perhaps they wouldn't take me
+if they knew; but I would be so faithful to them, and try so heard to learn
+what they wanted--"
+
+"That's all nonsense, their not taking you.  I'll find you a place some day,
+but you're not strong enough yet.  You'd be brought right back here.  You're
+as pale as a ghost--almost look like one.  So don't be impatient, but give me
+a chance to find you a good place.  I feel sorry for you, and don't want you
+to get among folks that have no feelings.  Don't you worry now; chirk up, and
+you'll come out all right."
+
+"I--I think that if--if I'm employed, the people who take me ought to know,"
+said Alida with bowed head.
+
+"They'll be blamed fools if they don't think more of you when they do know,"
+was his response. "Still, that shall be as you please.  I've told only my
+wife, and they've kept mum at the police station, so the thing hasn't got into
+the papers."
+
+Alida's head bowed lower still as she replied, "I thank you.  My only wish now
+is to find some quiet place in which I can work and be left to myself."
+
+"Very well," said Tom good-naturedly. "Cheer up!  I'll be on the lookout for
+you."
+
+She turned to the window near which she was sitting to hide the tears which
+his rough kindness evoked. "He don't seem to shrink from me as if I wasn't fit
+to be spoken to," she thought; "but his wife did.  I'm afraid people won't
+take me when they know."
+
+The April sunshine poured in at the window; the grass was becoming green; a
+robin alighted on a tree nearby and poured out a jubilant song.  For a few
+moments hope, that had been almost dead in her heart, revived.  As she looked
+gratefully at the bird, thanking it in her heart for the song, it darted upon
+a string hanging on an adjacent spray and bore it to a crotch between two
+boughs.  Then Alida saw it was building a nest.  Her woman's heart gave way.
+"Oh," she moaned, "I shall never have a home again!  No place shared by one
+who cares for me.  To work, and to be tolerated for the sake of my work, is
+all that's left."
+
+
+Chapter XIV. A Pitched Battle
+
+It was an odd household under Holcroft's roof on the evening of the Sunday we
+have described.  The farmer, in a sense, had "taken sanctuary" in his own
+room, that he might escape the maneuvering wiles of his tormenting
+housekeeper.  If she would content herself with general topics he would try to
+endure her foolish, high-flown talk until the three months expired; but that
+she should speedily and openly take the initiative in matrimonial designs was
+proof of such an unbalanced mind that he was filled with nervous dread.
+"Hanged if one can tell what such a silly, hairbrained woman will do next!" he
+thought, as he brooded by the fire. "Sunday or no Sunday, I feel as if I'd
+like to take my horsewhip and give Lemuel Weeks a piece of my mind."
+
+Such musings did not promise well for Mrs. Mumpson, scheming in the parlor
+below; but, as we have seen, she had the faculty of arranging all future
+events to her mind.  That matters had not turned out in the past as she had
+expected, counted for nothing.  She was one who could not be taught, even by
+experience.  The most insignificant thing in Holcroft's dwelling had not
+escaped her scrutiny and pretty accurate guess as to value, yet she could not
+see or understand the intolerable disgust and irritation which her ridiculous
+conduct excited.  In a weak mind egotism and selfishness, beyond a certain
+point, pass into practical insanity.  All sense of delicacy, of the fitness of
+things, is lost; even the power to consider the rights and feelings of others
+is wanting.  Unlike poor Holcroft, Mrs. Mumpson had few misgivings in regard
+to coming years.  As she rocked unceasingly before the parlor fire, she
+arranged everything in regard to his future as well as her own.
+
+Jane, quite forgotten, was oppressed with a miserable presentiment of evil. 
+Her pinched but intense little mind was concentrated on two facts--Holcroft's
+anger and her mother's lack of sense.  From such premises it did not take her
+long to reason out but one conclusion--"visitin' again;" and this was the
+summing up of all evils.  Now and then a tear would force its way out of one
+of her little eyes, but otherwise she kept her troubles to herself.
+
+Mrs. Wiggins was the only complacent personage in the house, and she unbent
+with a garrulous affability to Jane, which could be accounted for in but one
+way--Holcroft had forgotten about his cider barrel, thereby unconsciously
+giving her the chance to sample its contents freely.  She was now smoking her
+pipe with much content, and indulging in pleasing reminiscences which the
+facts of her life scarcely warranted.
+
+"Ven hi vas as leetle a gal as ye are," she began, and then she related
+experiences quite devoid of the simplicity and innocence of childhood.  The
+girl soon forgot her fears and listened with avidity until the old dame's face
+grew heavier, if possible, with sleep, and she stumbled off to bed.
+
+Having no wish to see or speak to her mother again, the child blew out the
+candle and stole silently up the stairway.  At last Mrs. Mumpson took her
+light and went noisily around, seeing to the fastenings of doors and windows.
+"I know he is listening to every sound from me, and he shall learn what a
+caretaker I am," she murmured softly.
+
+Once out of doors in the morning, with his foot on the native heath of his
+farm, Holcroft's hopefulness and courage always returned.  He was half angry
+with himself at his nervous irritation of the evening before. "If she becomes
+so cranky that I can't stand her, I'll pay the three months' wages and clear
+her out," he had concluded, and he went about his morning work with a grim
+purpose to submit to very little nonsense.
+
+Cider is akin to vinegar, and Mrs. Wiggins' liberal potations of the evening
+before had evidently imparted a marked acidity to her temper.  She laid hold
+of the kitchen utensils as if she had a spite against them, and when Jane,
+confiding in her friendliness shown so recently, came down to assist, she was
+chased out of doors with language we forbear to repeat.  Mrs. Mumpson,
+therefore, had no intimation of the low state of the barometer in the region
+of the kitchen. "I have taken time to think deeply and calmly," she murmured.
+"The proper course has been made clear to me.  He is somewhat uncouth; he is
+silent and unable to express his thoughts and emotions--in brief, undeveloped;
+he is awfully irreligious.  Moth and rust are busy in this house; much that
+would be so useful is going to waste.  He must learn to look upon me as the
+developer, the caretaker, a patient and healthful embodiment of female
+influence.  I will now begin actively my mission of making him an ornerment to
+society.  That mountainous Mrs. Viggins must be replaced by a deferential girl
+who will naturally look up to me.  How can I be a true caretaker--how can I
+bring repose and refinement to this dwelling with two hundred pounds of female
+impudence in my way?  Mr. Holcroft shall see that Mrs. Viggins is an unseemly
+and jarring discord in our home," and she brought the rocking chair from the
+parlor to the kitchen, with a serene and lofty air.  Jane hovered near the
+window, watching.
+
+At first, there was an ominous silence in respect to words.  Portentous sounds
+increased, however, for Mrs. Wiggins strode about with martial tread, making
+the boards creak and the dishes clatter, while her red eyes shot lurid and
+sanguinary gleams.  She would seize a dipper as if it were a foe, slamming it
+upon the table again as if striking an enemy.  Under her vigorous
+manipulation, kettles and pans resounded with reports like firearms.
+
+Mrs. Mumpson was evidently perturbed; her calm superiority was forsaking her;
+every moment she rocked faster--a sure indication that she was not at peace. 
+At last she said, with great dignity: "Mrs. Viggins, I must request you to
+perform your tasks with less clamor.  My nerves are not equal to this peculiar
+way of taking up and laying down things."
+
+"Vell, jes' ye vait a minute, han hi'll show ye 'ow hi kin take hup things han
+put 'em down hag'in hout o' my vay," and before Mrs. Mumpson could interfere,
+she found herself lifted, chair and all bodily, and carried to the parlor. 
+Between trepidation and anger, she could only gasp during the transit, and
+when left in the middle of the parlor floor she looked around in utter
+bewilderment.
+
+It so happened that Holcroft, on his way from the barn, had seen Jane looking
+in at the window, and, suspecting something amiss, had arrived just in time
+for the spectacle.  Convulsed with laughter, he returned hastily to the barn;
+while Jane expressed her feelings, whatever they were, by executing something
+like a hornpipe before the window.
+
+Mrs. Mumpson, however, was not vanquished.  She had only made a compulsory
+retreat from the scene of hostilities; and, after rallying her shattered
+faculties, advanced again with the chair. "How dared you, you disreputerble
+female?" she began.
+
+Mrs. Wiggins turned slowly and ominously upon her. "Ye call me a disrupterbul
+female hag'in, han ye vont find hit 'ealthy."
+
+Mrs. Mumpson prudently backed toward the door before delivering her return
+fire.
+
+"Woman!" she cried, "are you out of your mind?  Don't you know I'm housekeeper
+here, and that it's my duty to superintend you and your work?"
+
+"Vell, then, hi'll double ye hup hand put ye hon the shelf hof the dresser
+han' lock the glass door hon ye.  From hup there ye kin see all that's goin'
+hon and sup'intend to yer 'eart's content," and she started for her superior
+officer.
+
+Mrs. Mumpson backed so precipitately with her chair that it struck against the
+door case, and she sat down hard.  Seeing that Mrs. Wiggins was almost upon
+her, she darted back into the parlor, leaving the chair as a trophy in the
+hands of her enemy.  Mrs. Wiggins was somewhat appeased by this second
+triumph, and with the hope of adding gall and bitterness to Mrs. Mumpson's
+defeat, she took the chair to her rival's favorite rocking place, lighted her
+pipe, and sat down in grim complacency.  Mrs. Mumpson warily approached to
+recover a support which, from long habit, had become moral as well as
+physical, and her indignation knew no bounds when she saw it creaking under
+the weight of her foe.  It must be admitted, however, that her ire was not so
+great that she did not retain the "better part of valor," for she stepped
+back, unlocked the front door, and set it ajar.  On returning, she opened with
+a volubility that awed even Mrs. Wiggins for a moment. "You miserable,
+mountainous pauper; you interloper; you unrefined, irresponserble,
+unregenerate female, do you know what you have done in thus outraging ME?  I'm
+a respecterble woman, respecterbly connected.  I'm here in a responserble
+station.  When Mr. Holcroft appears he'll drive you from the dwelling which
+you vulgarize.  Your presence makes this apartment a den.  You are a wild
+beast--"
+
+"Hi'm a vile beastes, ham hi?" cried Mrs. Wiggins, at last stung into action,
+and she threw her lighted pipe at the open mouth that was discharging
+high-sounding epithets by the score.
+
+It struck the lintel over the widow's head, was shattered, and sent down upon
+her a shower of villainously smelling sparks.  Mrs. Mumpson shrieked and
+sought frantically to keep her calico wrapper from taking fire.  Meanwhile,
+Mrs. Wiggins rose and took a step or two that she might assist should there be
+any positive danger, for she had not yet reached a point of malignity which
+would lead her to witness calmly an auto-da-fe.  This was Jane's opportunity. 
+Mrs. Wiggins had alienated this small and hitherto friendly power, and now,
+with a returning impulse of loyalty, it took sides with the weaker party.  The
+kitchen door was on a crack; the child pushed it noiselessly open, darted
+around behind the stove, and withdrew the rocking chair.
+
+Mrs. Wiggins' brief anxiety and preoccupation passed, and she stepped backward
+again to sit down.  She did sit down, but with such terrific force that the
+stove and nearly everything else in the room threatened to fall with her.  She
+sat helplessly for a bewildered moment, while Jane, with the chair, danced
+before her exclaiming, tauntingly, "That's for chasing me out as if I was a
+cat!"
+
+"Noo hi'll chase ye both hout," cried the ireful Wiggins, scrambling to her
+feet.  She made good her threat, for Holcroft, a moment later, saw mother and
+daughter, the latter carrying the chair, rushing from the front door, and Mrs.
+Wiggins, armed with a great wooden spoon, waddling after them, her
+objurgations mingling with Mrs. Mumpson's shrieks and Jane's shrill laughter. 
+The widow caught a glimpse of him standing in the barn door, and, as if borne
+by the wind, she flew toward him, crying, "He shall be my protector!"
+
+He barely had time to whisk through a side door and close it after him.  The
+widow's impetuous desire to pant out the story of her wrongs carried her into
+the midst of the barnyard, where she was speedily confronted by an unruly
+young heifer that could scarcely be blamed for hostility to such a
+wild-looking object.
+
+The animal shook its head threateningly as it advanced.  Again the widow's
+shrieks resounded.  This time Holcroft was about to come to the rescue, when
+the beleaguered woman made a dash for the top of the nearest fence, reminding
+her amused looker-on of the night of her arrival when she had perched like
+some strange sort of bird on the wagon wheel.
+
+Seeing that she was abundantly able to escape alone, the farmer remained in
+concealment.  Although disgusted and angry at the scenes taking place, he was
+scarcely able to restrain roars of laughter.  Perched upon the fence, the
+widow called piteously for him to lift her down, but he was not to be caught
+by any such device.  At last, giving up hope and still threatened by the
+heifer, she went over on the other side.  Knowing that she must make a detour
+before reaching the dwelling, Holcroft went thither rapidly with the purpose
+of restoring order at once. "Jane," he said sternly, "take that chair to the
+parlor and leave it there.  Let there be no more such nonsense."
+
+At his approach, Mrs. Wiggins had retreated sullenly to the kitchen. "Come,"
+he ordered good-naturedly, "hasten breakfast and let there be no more
+quarreling."
+
+"Hif hi vas left to do me work hin peace--" she began.
+
+"Well, you shall do it in peace."
+
+At this moment Mrs. Mumpson came tearing in, quite oblivious of the fact that
+she had left a goodly part of her calico skirt on a nail of the fence.  She
+was rushing toward Holcroft, when he said sternly, and with a repellent
+gesture, "Stop and listen to me.  If there's any more of this quarreling like
+cats and dogs in my house, I'll send for the constable and have you all
+arrested.  If you are not all utterly demented and hopeless fools, you will
+know that you came here to do my work, and nothing else."  Then catching a
+glimpse of Mrs. Mumpson's dress, and fearing he should laugh outright, he
+turned abruptly on his heel and went to his room, where he was in a divided
+state between irrepressible mirth and vexation.
+
+Mrs. Mumpson also fled to her room.  She felt that the proper course for her
+at this juncture was a fit of violent hysterics; but a prompt douche from the
+water pitcher, administered by the unsympathetic Jane, effectually checked the
+first symptoms. "Was ever a respecterble woman--"
+
+"You aint respectable," interrupted the girl, as she departed. "You look like
+a scarecrow.  'Fi's you I'd begin to show some sense now."
+
+
+Chapter XV. "What is to Become of Me?"
+
+Holcroft's reference to a constable and arrest, though scarcely intended to be
+more than a vague threat, had the effect of clearing the air like a clap of
+thunder.  Jane had never lost her senses, such as she possessed, and Mrs.
+Wiggins recovered hers sufficiently to apologize to the farmer when he came
+down to breakfast. "But that Mumpson's hawfully haggravatin', master, as ye
+know yeself, hi'm a-thinkin'.  Vud ye jis tell a body vat she is 'here, han
+'ow hi'm to get hon vith 'er.  Hif hi'm to take me horders from 'er, hi'd
+ruther go back to the poor-'us."
+
+"You are to take your orders from me and no one else.  All I ask is that you
+go on quietly with your work and pay no attention to her.  You know well
+enough that I can't have such goings on.  I want you to let Jane help you and
+learn her to do everything as far as she can.  Mrs. Mumpson can do the mending
+and ironing, I suppose.  At any rate, I won't have any more quarreling and
+uproar.  I'm a quiet man and intend to have a quiet house.  You and Jane can
+get along very well in the kitchen, and you say you understand the dairy
+work."
+
+"Vell hi does, han noo hi've got me horders hi'll go right along."
+
+Mrs. Mumpson was like one who had been rudely shaken out of a dream, and she
+appeared to have sense enough to realize that she couldn't assume so much at
+first as she anticipated.  She received from Jane a cup of coffee, and said
+feebly, "I can partake of no more after the recent trying events."
+
+For some hours she was a little dazed, but her mind was of too light weight to
+be long cast down.  Jane rehearsed Holcroft's words, described his manner, and
+sought with much insistence to show her mother that she must drop her nonsense
+at once. "I can see it in his eye," said the girl, "that he won't stand much
+more.  If yer don't come down and keep yer hands busy and yer tongue still,
+we'll tramp.  As to his marrying you, bah!  He'd jes' as soon marry Mrs.
+Wiggins."
+
+This was awful prose, but Mrs. Mumpson was too bewildered and discouraged for
+a time to dispute it, and the household fell into a somewhat regular routine. 
+The widow appeared at her meals with the air of a meek and suffering martyr;
+Holcroft was exceedingly brief in his replies to her questions, and paid no
+heed to her remarks.  After supper and his evening work, he went directly to
+his room.  Every day, however, he secretly chafed with ever-increasing
+discontent, over this tormenting presence in his house.  The mending and such
+work as she attempted was so wretchedly performed that it would better have
+been left undone.  She was also recovering her garrulousness, and mistook his
+toleration and her immunity in the parlor for proof of a growing
+consideration. "He knows that my hands were never made for such coarse, menial
+tasks as that Viggins does," she thought, as she darned one of his stockings
+in a way that would render it almost impossible for him to put his foot into
+it again. "The events of last Monday morning were unfortunate, unforeseen,
+unprecedented.  I was unprepared for such vulgar, barbarous, unheard-of
+proceedings--taken off my feet, as it were; but now that he's had time to
+think it all over, he sees that I am not a common woman like Viggins,"--Mrs.
+Mumpson would have suffered rather than have accorded her enemy the prefix of
+Mrs.,--"who is only fit to be among pots and kettles.  He leaves me in the
+parlor as if a refined apartment became me and I became it.  Time and my
+influence will mellow, soften, elevate, develop, and at last awaken a desire
+for my society, then yearnings.  My first error was in not giving myself time
+to make a proper impression.  He will soon begin to yield like the earth
+without.  First it is hard and frosty, then it is cold and muddy, if I may
+permit myself so disagreeable an illustration.  Now he is becoming mellow, and
+soon every word I utter will be like good seed in good ground.  How aptly it
+all fits!  I have only to be patient."
+
+She was finally left almost to utter idleness, for Jane and Mrs. Wiggins
+gradually took from the incompetent hands even the light tasks which she had
+attempted.  She made no protest, regarding all as another proof that Holcroft
+was beginning to recognize her superiority and unfitness for menial tasks. 
+She would maintain, however, her character as the caretaker and ostentatiously
+inspected everything; she also tried to make as much noise in fastening up the
+dwelling at night as if she were barricading a castle.  Holcroft would listen
+grimly, well aware that no house had been entered in Oakville during his
+memory.  He had taken an early occasion to say at the table that he wished no
+one to enter his room except Jane, and that he would not permit any
+infringement of this rule.  Mrs. Mumpson's feelings had been hurt at first by
+this order, but she soon satisfied herself that it had been meant for Mrs.
+Wiggins' benefit and not her own.  She found, however, that Jane interpreted
+it literally. "If either of you set foot in that room, I'll tell him," she
+said flatly. "I've had my orders and I'm a-goin' to obey.  There's to be no
+more rummagin'.  If you'll give me the keys I'll put things back in order
+ag'in."
+
+"Well, I won't give you the keys.  I'm the proper person to put things in
+order if you did not replace them properly.  You are just making an excuse to
+rummage yourself.  My motive for inspecting is very different from yours."
+
+"Shouldn't wonder if you was sorry some day," the girl had remarked, and so
+the matter had dropped and been forgotten.
+
+Holcroft solaced himself with the fact that Jane and Mrs. Wiggins served his
+meals regularly and looked after the dairy with better care than it had
+received since his wife died. "If I had only those two in the house, I could
+get along first-rate," he thought. "After the three months are up, I'll try to
+make such an arrangement.  I'd pay the mother and send her off now, but if I
+did, Lemuel Weeks would put her up to a lawsuit."
+
+April days brought the longed-for plowing and planting, and the farmer was so
+busy and absorbed in his work that Mrs. Mumpson had less and less place in his
+thoughts, even as a thorn in the flesh.  One bright afternoon, however, chaos
+came again unexpectedly.  Mrs. Wiggins did not suggest a volatile creature,
+yet such, alas! she was.  She apparently exhaled and was lost, leaving no
+trace.  The circumstances of her disappearance permit of a very matter-of-fact
+and not very creditable explanation.  On the day in question she prepared an
+unusually good dinner, and the farmer had enjoyed it in spite of Mrs.
+Mumpson's presence and desultory remarks.  The morning had been fine and he
+had made progress in his early spring work.  Mrs. Wiggins felt that her hour
+and opportunity had come.  Following him to the door, she said in a low tone
+and yet with a decisive accent, as if she was claiming a right, "Master, hi'd
+thank ye for me two weeks' wages."
+
+He unsuspectingly and unhesitatingly gave it to her, thinking, "That's the way
+with such people.  They want to be paid often and be sure of their money. 
+She'll work all the better for having it."
+
+Mrs. Wiggins knew the hour when the stage passed the house; she had made up a
+bundle without a very close regard to meum or tuum, and was ready to flit. 
+The chance speedily came.
+
+The "caretaker" was rocking in the parlor and would disdain to look, while
+Jane had gone out to help plant some early potatoes on a warm hillside.  The
+coast was clear.  Seeing the stage coming, the old woman waddled down the lane
+at a remarkable pace, paid her fare to town, and the Holcroft kitchen knew her
+no more.
+
+That she found the "friend" she had wished to see on her way out to the farm,
+and that this friend brought her quickly under Tom Watterly's care again, goes
+without saying.
+
+As the shadows lengthened and the robins became tuneful, Holcroft said,
+"You've done well, Jane.  Thank you.  Now you can go back to the house."
+
+The child soon returned in breathless haste to the field where the farmer was
+covering the potato pieces she had dropped, and cried, "Mrs. Wiggins's gone!"
+
+Like a flash the woman's motive in asking for her wages occurred to him, but
+he started for the house to assure himself of the truth. "Perhaps she's in the
+cellar," he said, remembering the cider barrel, "or else she's out for a
+walk."
+
+"No, she aint," persisted Jane. "I've looked everywhere and all over the barn,
+and she aint nowhere.  Mother haint seen her, nuther."
+
+With dreary misgivings, Holcroft remembered that he no longer had a practical
+ally in the old Englishwoman, and he felt that a new breaking up was coming. 
+He looked wistfully at Jane, and thought, "I COULD get along with that child
+if the other was away.  But that can't be; SHE'D visit here indefinitely if
+Jane stayed."
+
+When Mrs. Mumpson learned from Jane of Mrs. Wiggins' disappearance, she was
+thrown into a state of strong excitement.  She felt that her hour and
+opportunity might be near also, and she began to rock very fast. "What else
+could he expect of such a female?" she soliloquized. "I've no doubt but she's
+taken things, too.  He'll now learn my value and what it is to have a
+caretaker who will never desert him."
+
+Spirits and courage rose with the emergency; her thoughts hurried her along
+like a dry leaf caught in a March gale. "Yes," she murmured, "the time has
+come for me to act, to dare, to show him in his desperate need and hour of
+desertion what might be, may be, must be.  He will now see clearly the
+difference between these peculiar females who come and go, and a respecterble
+woman and a mother who can be depended upon--one who will never steal away
+like a thief in the night."
+
+She saw Holcroft approaching the house with Jane; she heard him ascend to Mrs.
+Wiggins' room, then return to the kitchen and ejaculate, "Yes, she's gone,
+sure enough."
+
+"Now, ACT!" murmured the widow, and she rushed toward the farmer with clasped
+hands, and cried with emotion, "Yes, she's gone; but I'm not gone.  You are
+not deserted.  Jane will minister to you; I will be the caretaker, and our
+home will be all the happier because that monstrous creature is absent.  Dear
+Mr. Holcroft, don't be so blind to your own interests and happiness, don't
+remain undeveloped!  Everything is wrong here if you would but see it.  You
+are lonely and desolate.  Moth and rust have entered, things in unopened
+drawers and closets are molding and going to waste.  Yield to true female
+influence and--"
+
+Holcroft had been rendered speechless at first by this onslaught, but the
+reference to unopened drawers and closets awakened a sudden suspicion.  Had
+she dared to touch what had belonged to his wife?  "What!" he exclaimed
+sharply, interrupting her; then with an expression of disgust and anger, he
+passed her swiftly and went to his room.  A moment later came the stern
+summons, "Jane, come here!"
+
+"Now you'll see what'll come of that rummagin'," whimpered Jane. "You aint got
+no sense at all to go at him so.  He's jes' goin' to put us right out," and
+she went upstairs as if to execution.
+
+"Have I failed?" gasped Mrs. Mumpson, and retreating to the chair, she rocked
+nervously.
+
+"Jane," said Holcroft in hot anger, "my wife's things have been pulled out of
+her bureau and stuffed back again as if they were no better than dishcloths. 
+Who did it?"
+
+The child now began to cry aloud.
+
+"There, there!" he said, with intense irritation, "I can't trust you either."
+
+"I haint--touched 'em--since you told me--told me--not to do things on the
+sly," the girl sobbed brokenly; but he had closed the door upon her and did
+not hear.
+
+He could have forgiven her almost anything but this.  Since she only had been
+permitted to take care of his room, he naturally thought that she had
+committed the sacrilege, and her manner had confirmed this impression.  Of
+course, the mother had been present and probably had assisted; but he had
+expected nothing better of her.
+
+He took the things out, folded and smoothed them as carefully as he could with
+his heavy hands and clumsy fingers.  His gentle, almost reverent touch was in
+strange contrast with his flushed, angry face and gleaming eyes. "This is the
+worst that's happened yet," he muttered. "Oh, Lemuel Weeks!  It's well you are
+not here now, or we might both have cause to be sorry.  It was you who put
+these prying, and for all I know, thieving creatures into my house, and it was
+as mean a trick as ever one man played another. You and this precious cousin
+of yours thought you could bring about a marriage; you put her up to her
+ridiculous antics.  Faugh!  The very thought of it all makes me sick."
+
+"Oh, mother, what shall I do?" Jane cried, rushing into the parlor and
+throwing herself on the floor, "he's goin' to put us right out."
+
+"He can't put me out before the three months are up," quavered the widow.
+
+"Yes, he can.  We've been a-rummagin' where we'd no bizniss to be.  He's mad
+enough to do anything; he jes' looks awful; I'm afraid of him."
+
+"Jane," said her mother plaintively, "I feel indisposed.  I think I'll
+retire."
+
+"Yes, that's the way with YOU," sobbed the child. "You get me into the scrape
+and now you retire."
+
+Mrs. Mumpson's confidence in herself and her schemes was terribly shaken. "I
+must act very discreetly.  I must be alone that I may think over these
+untoward events.  Mr. Holcroft has been so warped by the past female
+influences of his life that there's no counting on his action.  He taxes me
+sorely," she explained, and then ascended the stairs.
+
+"Oh!  Oh!" moaned the child as she writhed on the floor, "mother aint got no
+sense at all.  What IS goin' to become of me?  I'd ruther hang about his barn
+than go back to Cousin Lemuel's or any other cousin's."
+
+Spurred by one hope, she at last sprung up and went to the kitchen.  It was
+already growing dark, and she lighted the lamp, kindled the fire, and began
+getting supper with breathless energy.
+
+As far as he could discover, Holcroft was satisfied that nothing had been
+taken.  In this respect he was right.  Mrs. Mumpson's curiosity and
+covetousness were boundless, but she would not steal.  There are few who do
+not draw the line somewhere.
+
+Having tried to put the articles back as they were before, he locked them up,
+and went hastily down and out, feeling that he must regain his self-control
+and decide upon his future action at once. "I will then carry out my purposes
+in a way that will give the Weeks tribe no chance to make trouble."
+
+As he passed the kitchen windows he saw Jane rushing about as if possessed,
+and he stopped to watch her.  It soon became evident that she was trying to
+get his supper.  His heart relented at once in spite of himself. "The poor,
+wronged child!" he muttered. "Why should I be so hard on her for doing what
+she's been brought up to do?  Well, well, it's too bad to send her away, but I
+can't help it.  I'd lose my own reason if the mother were here much longer,
+and if I kept Jane, her idiotic mother would stay in spite of me.  If she
+didn't, there'd be endless talk and lawsuits, too, like enough, about
+separating parent and child.  Jane's too young and little, anyway, to be here
+alone and do the work.  But I'm sorry for her, I declare I am, and I wish I
+could do something to give her a chance in the world.  If my wife was only
+living, we'd take and bring her up, disagreeable and homely as she is; but
+there's no use of my trying to do anything alone.  I fear, after all, that I
+shall have to give up the old place and go--I don't know where.  What is to
+become of her?"
+
+
+Chapter XVI. Mrs. Mumpson's Vicissitudes
+
+Having completed her preparations for supper, Jane stole timidly up to
+Holcroft's room to summon him.  Her first rap on his door was scarcely
+audible, then she ventured to knock louder and finally to call him, but there
+was no response.  Full of vague dread she went to her mother's room and said,
+"He won't answer me.  He's so awful mad that I don't know what he'll do."
+
+"I think he has left his apartment," her mother moaned from the bed.
+
+"Why couldn't yer tell me so before?" cried Jane. "What yer gone to bed for? 
+If you'd only show some sense and try to do what he brought you here for, like
+enough he'd keep us yet."
+
+"My heart's too crushed, Jane--"
+
+"Oh, bother, bother!" and the child rushed away.  She looked into the dark
+parlor and called, "Mr. Holcroft!"  Then she appeared in the kitchen again,
+the picture of uncouth distress and perplexity.  A moment later she opened the
+door and darted toward the barn.
+
+"What do you wish, Jane?" said Holcroft, emerging from a shadowy corner and
+recalling her.
+
+"Sup--supper's--ready," sobbed the child.
+
+He came in and sat down at the table, considerately appearing not to notice
+her until she had a chance to recover composure.  She vigorously used the
+sleeve of both arms in drying her eyes, then stole in and found a seat in a
+dusky corner.
+
+"Why don't you come to supper?" he asked quietly.
+
+"Don't want any."
+
+"You had better take some up to your mother."
+
+"She oughtn't to have any."
+
+"That doesn't make any difference.  I want you to take up something to her,
+and then come down and eat your supper like a sensible girl."
+
+"I aint been sensible, nor mother nuther."
+
+"Do as I say, Jane."  The child obeyed, but she couldn't swallow anything but
+a little coffee.
+
+Holcroft was in a quandary.  He had not the gift of speaking soothing yet
+meaningless words, and was too honest to raise false hopes.  He was therefore
+almost as silent and embarrassed as Jane herself.  To the girl's furtive
+scrutiny he did not seem hardened against her, and she at last ventured, "Say,
+I didn't touch them drawers after you told me not to do anything on the sly."
+
+"When were they opened?  Tell me the truth, Jane."
+
+"Mother opened them the first day you left us alone.  I told her you wouldn't
+like it, but she said she was housekeeper; she said how it was her duty to
+inspect everything.  I wanted to inspect, too.  We was jes' rummagin'--that's
+what it was.  After the things were all pulled out, mother got the rocker and
+wouldn't do anything.  It was gettin' late, and I was frightened and poked 'em
+back in a hurry.  Mother wanted to rummage ag'in the other day and I wouldn't
+let her; then, she wouldn't let me have the keys so I could fix 'em up."
+
+"But the keys were in my pocket, Jane."
+
+"Mother has a lot of keys.  I've told you jes' how it all was."
+
+"Nothing was taken away?"
+
+"No.  Mother aint got sense, but she never takes things.  I nuther 'cept when
+I'm hungry.  Never took anything here. Say, are you goin' to send us away?'
+
+"I fear I shall have to, Jane.  I'm sorry for you, for I believe you would try
+to do the best you could if given a chance, and I can see you never had a
+chance."
+
+"No," said the child, blinking hard to keep the tears out of her eyes. "I aint
+had no teachin'.  I've jes' kinder growed along with the farm hands and rough
+boys.  Them that didn't hate me teased me.  Say, couldn't I stay in your barn
+and sleep in the hay?"
+
+Holcroft was sorely perplexed and pushed away his half-eaten supper.  He knew
+himself what it was to be friendless and lonely, and his heart softened toward
+this worse than motherless child.
+
+"Jane," he said kindly, "I'm just as sorry for you as I can be, but you don't
+know the difficulties in the way of what you wish, and I fear I can't make you
+understand them.  Indeed, it would not be best to tell you all of them.  If I
+could keep you at all, you should stay in the house, and I'd be kind to you,
+but it can't be.  I may not stay here myself.  My future course is very
+uncertain.  There's no use of my trying to go on as I have.  Perhaps some day
+I can do something for you, and if I can, I will.  I will pay your mother her
+three months' wages in full in the morning, and then I want you both to get
+your things into your trunk, and I'll take you to your Cousin Lemuel's."
+
+Driven almost to desperation, Jane suggested the only scheme she could think
+of. "If you stayed here and I run away and came back, wouldn't you keep me? 
+I'd work all day and all night jes' for the sake of stayin'."
+
+"No, Jane," said Holcroft firmly, "you'd make me no end of trouble if you did
+that.  If you'll be a good girl and learn how to do things, I'll try to find
+you a place among kind people some day when you're older and can act for
+yourself."
+
+"You're afraid 'fi's here mother'd come a-visitin," said the girl keenly.
+
+"You're too young to understand half the trouble that might follow.  My plans
+are too uncertain for me to tangle myself up.  You and your mother must go
+away at once, so I can do what I must do before it's too late in the season. 
+Here's a couple of dollars which you can keep for yourself," and he went up to
+his room, feeling that he could not witness the child's distress any longer.
+
+He fought hard against despondency and tried to face the actual condition of
+his affairs.  "I might have known," he thought, "that things would have turned
+out somewhat as they have, with such women in the house, and I don't see much
+chance of getting better ones.  I've been so bent on staying and going on as I
+used to that I've just shut my eyes to the facts."  He got out an old account
+book and pored over it a long time.  The entries therein were blind enough,
+but at last he concluded, "It's plain that I've lost money on the dairy ever
+since my wife died, and the prospects now are worse than ever.  That Weeks
+tribe will set the whole town talking against me and it will be just about
+impossible to get a decent woman to come here.  I might as well have an
+auction and sell all the cows but one at once.  After that, if I find I can't
+make out living alone, I'll put the place in better order and sell or rent.  I
+can get my own meals after a fashion, and old Jonathan Johnson's wife will do
+my washing and mending.  It's time it was done better than it has been, for
+some of my clothes make me look like a scarecrow.  I believe Jonathan will
+come with his cross dog and stay here too, when I must be away.  Well, well,
+it's a hard lot for a man; but I'd be about as bad off, and a hundred-fold
+more lonely, if I went anywhere else.
+
+"I can only feel my way along and live a day at a time.  I'll learn what can
+be done and what can't be.  One thing is clear: I can't go on with this Mrs.
+Mumpson in the house a day longer.  She makes me creep and crawl all over, and
+the first thing I know I shall be swearing like a bloody pirate unless I get
+rid of her.
+
+"If she wasn't such a hopeless idiot I'd let her stay for the sake of Jane,
+but I won't pay her good wages to make my life a burden a day longer," and
+with like self-communings he spent the evening until the habit of early
+drowsiness overcame him.
+
+The morning found Jane dispirited and a little sullen, as older and wiser
+people are apt to be when disappointed.  She employed herself in getting
+breakfast carelessly and languidly, and the result was not satisfactory.
+
+"Where's your mother?" Holcroft asked when he came in.
+
+"She told me to tell you she was indisposed."
+
+"Indisposed to go to Lemuel Weeks'?"
+
+"I 'spect she means she's sick."
+
+He frowned and looked suspiciously at the girl.  Here was a new complication,
+and very possibly a trick.
+
+"What's the matter with her?"
+
+"Dunno."
+
+"Well, she had better get well enough to go by this afternoon," he remarked,
+controlling his irritation with difficulty, and nothing more was said.
+
+Full of his new plans he spent a busy forenoon and then came to dinner.  It
+was the same old story.  He went up and knocked at Mrs. Mumpson's door, saying
+that he wished to speak with her.
+
+"I'm too indisposed to transact business," she replied feebly.
+
+"You must be ready tomorrow morning," he called. "I have business plans which
+can't be delayed," and he turned away muttering rather sulphurous words.
+
+"He will relent; his hard heart will soften at last--" But we shall not weary
+the reader with the long soliloquies with which she beguiled her politic
+seclusion, as she regarded it.  Poor, unsophisticated Jane made matters worse. 
+The condition of life among her much-visited relatives now existed again.  She
+was not wanted, and her old sly, sullen, and furtive manner reasserted itself. 
+Much of Holcroft's sympathy was thus alienated, yet he partially understood
+and pitied her.  It became, however, all the more clear that he must get rid
+of both mother and child, and that further relations with either of them could
+only lead to trouble.
+
+The following morning only Jane appeared. "Is your mother really sick?" he
+asked.
+
+"S'pose so," was the laconic reply.
+
+"You haven't taken much pains with the breakfast, Jane."
+
+"'Taint no use."
+
+With knitted brows he thought deeply, and silently ate the wretched meal which
+had been prepared.  Then, remarking that he might do some writing, he went up
+to a small attic room which had been used occasionally by a hired man.  It
+contained a covered pipe-hole leading into the chimney flue.  Removing the
+cover, he stopped up the flue with an old woolen coat. "I suppose I'll have to
+meet tricks with tricks," he muttered.
+
+Returning to his own apartment, he lighted a fire in the stove and laid upon
+the kindling blaze some dampened wood, then went out and quietly hitched his
+horses to the wagon.
+
+The pungent odor of smoke soon filled the house.  The cover over the pipe-hole
+in Mrs. Mumpson's room was not very secure, and thick volumes began to pour in
+upon the startled widow. "Jane!" she shrieked.
+
+If Jane was sullen toward Holcroft, she was furious at her mother, and paid no
+heed at first to her cry.
+
+"Jane, Jane, the house is on fire!"
+
+Then the child did fly up the stairway.  The smoke seemed to confirm the words
+of her mother, who was dressing in hot haste. "Run and tell Mr. Holcroft!" she
+cried.
+
+"I won't," said the girl. "If he won't keep us in the house, I don't care if
+he don't have any house."
+
+"No, no, tell him!" screamed Mrs. Mumpson. "If we save his house he will
+relent.  Gratitude will overwhelm him.  So far from turning us away, he will
+sue, he will plead for forgiveness for his former harshness; his home saved
+will be our home won.  Just put our things in the trunk first.  Perhaps the
+house can't be saved, and you know we must save OUR things.  Help me, quick! 
+There, there; now, now"--both were sneezing and choking in a half-strangled
+manner. "Now let me lock it; my hand trembles so; take hold and draw it out;
+drag it downstairs; no matter how it scratches things!"
+
+Having reached the hall below, she opened the door and shrieked for Holcroft;
+Jane also began running toward the barn.  The farmer came hastily out, and
+shouted, "What's the matter?"
+
+"The house is on fire!" they screamed in chorus.
+
+To carry out his ruse, he ran swiftly to the house.  Mrs. Mumpson stood before
+him wringing her hands and crying, "Oh, dear Mr. Holcroft, can't I do anything
+to help you?  I would so like to help you and--"
+
+"Yes, my good woman, let me get in the door and see what's the matter.  Oh,
+here's your trunk.  That's sensible.  Better get it outside," and he went up
+the stairs two steps at a time and rushed into his room.
+
+"Jane, Jane," ejaculated Mrs. Mumpson, sinking on a seat in the porch, "he
+called me his good woman!"  But Jane was busy dragging the trunk out of doors. 
+Having secured her own and her mother's worldly possessions, she called,
+"Shall I bring water and carry things out?"
+
+"No," he replied, "not yet. There's something the matter with the chimney,"
+and he hastened up to the attic room, removed the clog from the flue, put on
+the cover again, and threw open the window.  Returning, he locked the door of
+the room which Mrs. Mumpson had occupied and came downstairs. "I must get a
+ladder and examine the chimney," he said as he passed.
+
+"Oh, my dear Mr. Holcroft!" the widow began.
+
+"Can't talk with you yet," and he hastened on.
+
+"As soon as he's sure the house is safe, Jane, all will be well."
+
+But the girl had grown hopeless and cynical.  She had not penetrated his
+scheme to restore her mother to health, but understood the man well enough to
+be sure that her mother's hopes would end as they had in the past.  She sat
+down apathetically on the trunk to see what would happen next.
+
+After a brief inspection Holcroft came down from the roof and said, "The
+chimney will have to be repaired," which was true enough and equally so of
+other parts of the dwelling.  The fortunes of the owner were reflected in the
+appearance of the building.
+
+If it were a possible thing Holcroft wished to carry out his ruse undetected,
+and he hastened upstairs again, ostensibly to see that all danger had passed,
+but in reality to prepare his mind for an intensely disagreeable interview.
+"I'd rather face a mob of men than that one idiotic woman," he muttered. "I
+could calculate the actions of a setting hen with her head cut off better than
+I can this widow's.  But there's no help for it," and he came down looking
+very resolute. "I've let the fire in my stove go out, and there's no more
+danger,"  he said quietly, as he sat down on the porch opposite Mrs. Mumpson.
+
+"Oh-h," she exclaimed, with a long breath of relief, "we've saved the
+dwelling.  What would we have done if it had burned down!  We would have been
+homeless."
+
+"That may be my condition soon, as it is," he said coldly. "I am very glad,
+Mrs. Mumpson, that you are so much better.  As Jane told you, I suppose, I
+will pay you the sum I agreed to give you for three months' service--"
+
+"My dear Mr. Holcroft, my nerves have been too shaken to talk business this
+morning," and the widow leaned back and looked as if she were going to faint.
+"I'm only a poor lone woman," she added feebly, "and you cannot be so lacking
+in the milk of human kindness as to take advantage of me."
+
+"No, madam, nor shall I allow you and Lemuel Weeks to take advantage of me. 
+This is my house and I have a right to make my own arrangements."
+
+"It might all be arranged so easily in another way," sighed the widow.
+
+"It cannot be arranged in any other way--" he began.
+
+"Mr. Holcroft," she cried, leaning suddenly forward with clasped hands and
+speaking effusively, "you but now called me your good woman.  Think how much
+those words mean.  Make them true, now that you've spoken them.  Then you
+won't be homeless and will never need a caretaker."
+
+"Are you making me an offer of marriage?" he asked with lowering brow.
+
+"Oh, no, indeed!" she simpered. "That wouldn't be becoming in me. I'm only
+responding to your own words."
+
+Rising, he said sternly, "No power on earth could induce me to marry you, and
+that would be plain enough if you were in your right mind.  I shall not stand
+this foolishness another moment.  You must go with me at once to Lemuel
+Weeks'.  If you will not, I'll have you taken to an insane asylum."
+
+"To an insane asylum!  What for?" she half shrieked, springing to her feet.
+
+"You'll see," he replied, going down the steps. "Jump up, Jane!  I shall take
+the trunk to your cousin's.  If you are so crazy as to stay in a man's house
+when he don't want you and won't have you, you are fit only for an asylum."
+
+Mrs. Mumpson was sane enough to perceive that she was at the end of her
+adhesive resources.  In his possession of her trunk, the farmer also had a
+strategic advantage which made it necessary for her to yield.  She did so,
+however, with very bad grace.  When he drove up, she bounced into the wagon as
+if made of India rubber, while Jane followed slowly, with a look of sullen
+apathy.  He touched his horses with the whip into a smart trot, scarcely
+daring to believe in his good fortune.  The lane was rather steep and rough,
+and he soon had to pull up lest the object of his unhappy solicitude should be
+jolted out of the vehicle.  This gave the widow her chance to open fire. "The
+end has not come yet, Mr. Holcroft," she said vindictively. "You may think you
+are going to have an easy triumph over a poor, friendless, unfortunate,
+sensitive, afflicted woman and a fatherless child, but you shall soon learn
+that there's a law in the land.  You have addressed improper words to me, you
+have threatened me, you have broken your agreement.  I have writings, I have a
+memory, I have language to plead the cause of the widow and the fatherless. I
+have been wronged, outraged, trampled upon, and then turned out of doors.  The
+indignant world shall hear my story, the finger of scorn will be pointed at
+you.  Your name will become a byword and a hissing.  Respecterble women,
+respecterbly connected, will stand aloof and shudder."
+
+The torrent of words was unchecked except when the wheels struck a stone,
+jolting her so severely that her jaws came together with a click as if she
+were snapping at him.
+
+He made no reply whatever, but longed to get his hands upon Lemuel Weeks. 
+Pushing his horses to a high rate of speed, he soon reached that interested
+neighbor's door, intercepting him just as he was starting to town.
+
+He looked very sour as he saw his wife's relatives, and demanded harshly,
+"What does this mean?"
+
+"It means," cried Mrs. Mumpson in her high, cackling tones, "that he's said
+things and done things too awful to speak of; that he's broken his agreement
+and turned us out of doors."
+
+"Jim Holcroft," said Mr. Weeks, blustering up to the wagon, "you can't carry
+on with this high hand.  Take these people back to your house where they
+belong, or you'll be sorry."
+
+Holcroft sprang out, whirled Mr. Weeks out of his way, took out the trunk,
+then with equal expedition and no more ceremony lifted down Mrs. Mumpson and
+Jane.
+
+"Do you know what you're about?" shouted Mr. Weeks in a rage. "I'll have the
+law on you this very day."
+
+Holcroft maintained his ominous silence as he hitched his horses securely. 
+Then he strode toward Weeks, who backed away from him. "Oh, don't be afraid,
+you sneaking, cowardly fox!" said the farmer bitterly. "If I gave you your
+desserts, I'd take my horsewhip to you.  You're going to law me, are you? 
+Well, begin today, and I'll be ready for you.  I won't demean myself by
+answering that woman, but I'm ready for you in any way you've a mind to come. 
+I'll put you and your wife on the witness stand.  I'll summon Cousin Abram, as
+you call him, and his wife, and compel you all under oath to give Mrs. Mumpson
+a few testimonials.  I'll prove the trick you played on me and the lies you
+told.  I'll prove that this woman, in my absence, invaded my room, and with
+keys of her own opened my dead wife's bureau and pulled out her things.  I'll
+prove that she hasn't earned her salt and can't, and may prove something more. 
+Now, if you want to go to law, begin.  Nothing would please me better than to
+show up you and your tribe.  I've offered to pay this woman her three months'
+wages in full, and so have kept my agreement.  She has not kept hers, for
+she's only sat in a rocking chair and made trouble.  Now, do as you please. 
+I'll give you all the law you want.  I'd like to add a horsewhipping, but that
+would give you a case and now you haven't any."
+
+As Holcroft uttered these words sternly and slowly, like a man angry indeed
+but under perfect self-control, the perspiration broke out on Weeks' face.  He
+was aware that Mrs. Mumpson was too well known to play the role of a wronged
+woman, and remembered what his testimony and that of many others would be
+under oath.  Therefore, he began, "Oh, well, Mr. Holcroft!  There's no need of
+your getting in such a rage and threatening so; I'm willing to talk the matter
+over and only want to do the square thing."
+
+The farmer made a gesture of disgust as he said, "I understand you, Lemuel
+Weeks.  There's no talking needed and I'm in no mood for it.  Here's the money
+I agreed to pay.  I'll give it to Mrs. Mumpson when she has signed this paper,
+and you've signed as witness of her signature.  Otherwise, it's law.  Now
+decide quick, I'm in a hurry."
+
+Objections were interposed, and Holcroft, returning the money to his pocket,
+started for his team, without a word. "Oh, well!" said Weeks in strong
+irritation, "I haven't time for a lawsuit at this  season of the year.  You
+are both cranks, and I suppose it would be best for me and my folks to be rid
+of you both.  It's a pity, though, you couldn't be married and left to fight
+it out."
+
+Holcroft took the whip from his wagon and said quietly, "If you speak another
+insulting word, I'll horsewhip you and take my chances."
+
+Something in the man's look prevented Weeks from uttering another unnecessary
+remark.  The business was soon transacted,  accompanied with Mrs. Mumpson's
+venomous words, for she had discovered that she could stigmatize Holcroft with
+impunity.  He went to Jane and shook her hand as he said goodby. "I am sorry
+for you, and I won't forget my promise;" then drove rapidly away.
+
+"Cousin Lemuel," said Mrs. Mumpson plaintively, "won't you have Timothy take
+my trunk to our room?"
+
+"No, I won't," he snapped. "You've had your chance and have fooled it away.  I
+was just going to town, and you and Jane will go along with me," and he put
+the widow's trunk into his wagon.
+
+Mrs. Weeks came out and wiped her eyes ostentatiously with her apron as she
+whispered, "I can't help it, Cynthy.  When Lemuel goes off the handle in this
+way, it's no use for me to say anything."
+
+Mrs. Mumpson wept hysterically as she was driven away.  Jane's sullen and
+apathetic aspect had passed away in part for Holcroft's words had kindled
+something like hope.
+
+
+Chapter XVII. A Momentous Decision
+
+It must be admitted that Holcroft enjoyed his triumph over Lemuel Weeks very
+much after the fashion of the aboriginal man.  Indeed, he was almost sorry he
+had not been given a little more provocation, knowing well that, had this been
+true, his neighbor would have received a fuller return for his interested
+efforts.  As he saw his farmhouse in the shimmering April sunlight, as the old
+churning dog came forward, wagging his tail, the farmer said, "This is the
+only place which can ever be home to me.  Well, well!  It's queer about
+people.  Some, when they go, leave you desolate; others make you happy by
+their absence.  I never dreamed that silly Mumpson could make me happy, but
+she has.  Blessed if I don't feel happy!  The first time in a year or more!" 
+And he began to whistle old "Coronation" in the most lively fashion as he
+unharnessed his horses.
+
+A little later, he prepared himself a good dinner and ate it in leisurely
+enjoyment, sharing a morsel now and then with the old dog. "You're a plaguey
+sight better company than she was," he mused. "That poor little stray cat of a
+Jane!  What will become of her?  Well, well!  Soon as she's old enough to cut
+loose from her mother, I'll try to give her a chance, if it's a possible
+thing."
+
+After dinner, he made a rough draught of an auction bill, offering his cows
+for sale, muttering as he did so, "Tom Watterly'll help me put it in better
+shape."  Then he drove a mile away to see old Mr. And Mrs. Johnson.  The
+former agreed for a small sum to mount guard with his dog during the farmer's
+occasional absences, and the latter readily consented to do the washing and
+mending.
+
+"What do I want of any more 'peculiar females,' as that daft widow called
+'em?" he chuckled on his return. "Blames if she wasn't the most peculiar of
+the lot.  Think of me marrying her!" and the hillside echoed to his derisive
+laugh. "As I feel today, there's a better chance of my being struck by
+lightning than marrying, and I don't think any woman could do it in spite of
+me. I'll run the ranch alone."
+
+That evening he smoked his pipe cheerfully beside the kitchen fire, the dog
+sleeping at his feet. "I declare," he said smilingly, "I feel quite at home."
+
+In the morning, after attending to his work, he went for old Jonathan Johnson
+and installed him in charge of the premises; then drove to the almshouse with
+all the surplus butter and eggs on hand.  Tom Watterly arrived at the door
+with his fast-trotting horse at the same time, and cried, "Hello, Jim!  Just
+in time.  I'm a sort of grass widower today--been taking my wife out to see
+her sister.  Come in and take pot luck with me and keep up my spirits."
+
+"Well, now, Tom," said Holcroft, shaking hands, "I'm glad, not that your
+wife's away, although it does make me downhearted to contrast your lot and
+mine, but I'm glad you can give me a little time, for I want to use that
+practical head of yours--some advice, you know."
+
+"All right.  Nothing to do for an hour or two but eat dinner and smoke my pipe
+with you.  Here, Bill!  Take this team and feed 'em."
+
+"Hold on," said Holcroft, "I'm not going to sponge on you.  I've got some
+favors to ask, and I want you to take in return some butter half spoiled in
+the making and this basket of eggs.  They're all right."
+
+"Go to thunder, Holcroft! What do you take me for?  When you've filled your
+pipe after dinner will you pull an egg out of your pocket and say, 'That's for
+a smoke?'  No, no, I don't sell any advice to old friends like you.  I'll buy
+your butter and eggs at what they're worth and have done with 'em.  Business
+is one thing, and sitting down and talking over an old crony's troubles is
+another.  I'm not a saint, Jim, as you know--a man in politics can't be--but I
+remember when we were boys together, and somehow thinking of those old days
+always fetches me.  Come in, for dinner is a-waiting, I guess."
+
+"Well, Tom, saint or no saint, I'd like to vote for you for gov'nor."
+
+"This aint an electioneering trick, as you know.  I can play them off as well
+as the next feller when there's need, kiss the babies and all that."
+
+Dinner was placed on the table immediately, and in a few moments the friends
+were left alone.  Then Holcroft related in a half comic, half serious manner
+his tribulations with the help.  Tom sat back in his chair and roared at the
+account of the pitched battle between the two widows and the final smoking out
+of Mrs. Mumpson, but he reproached his friend for not having horsewhipped
+Lemuel Weeks. "Don't you remember, Jim, he was a sneaking, tricky chap when we
+were at school together?  I licked him once, and it always does me good to
+think of it."
+
+"I own it takes considerable to rile me to the point of striking a man,
+especially on his own land.  His wife was looking out the window, too.  If
+we'd been out in the road or anywhere else--but what's the use?  I'm glad now
+it turned out as it has for I've too much on my mind for lawsuits, and the
+less one has to do with such cattle as Weeks the better.  Well, you see I'm
+alone again, and I'm going to go it alone.  I'm going to sell my cows and give
+up the dairy, and the thing I wanted help in most is the putting this auction
+bill in shape; also advice as to whether I had better try to sell here in town
+or up at the farm."
+
+Tom shook his head dubiously and scarcely glanced at the paper. "Your scheme
+don't look practical to me," he said. "I don't believe you can run that farm
+alone without losing money.  You'll just keep on going behind till the first
+thing you know you'll clap a mortgage on it.  Then you'll soon be done for. 
+What's more, you'll break down if you try to do both outdoor and indoor work. 
+Busy times will soon come, and you won't get your meals regularly; you'll be
+living on coffee and anything that comes handiest; your house will grow untidy
+and not fit to live in.  If you should be taken sick, there'd be no one to do
+for you.  Lumbermen, hunters, and such fellows can rough it alone awhile, but
+I never heard of a farm being run by man-power alone.  Now as to selling out
+your stock, look at it.  Grazing is what your farm's good for mostly.  It's a
+pity you're so bent on staying there.  Even if you didn't get very much for
+the place, from sale or rent, you'd have something that was sure.  A strong,
+capable man like you could find something to turn your hand to.  Then you
+could board in some respectable family, and not have to live like Robinson
+Crusoe.  I've thought it over since we talked last, and if I was you I'd sell
+or rent."
+
+"It's too late in the season to do either," said Holcroft dejectedly. "What's
+more, I don't want to, at least not this year.  I've settled that, Tom.  I'm
+going to have one more summer on the old place, anyway, if I have to live on
+bread and milk."
+
+"You can't make bread."
+
+"I'll have it brought from town on the stage."
+
+"Well, it's a pity some good, decent woman--There, how should I come to forget
+all about HER till this minute?  I don't know whether it would work.  Perhaps
+it would.  There's a woman here out of the common run.  She has quite a story,
+which I'll tell you in confidence.  Then you can say whether you'd like to
+employ her or not.  If you WILL stay on the farm, my advice is that you have a
+woman to do the housework, and me and Angy must try to find you one, if the
+one I have in mind won't answer.  The trouble is, Holcroft, to get the right
+kind of a woman to live there alone with you, unless you married her.  Nice
+women don't like to be talked about, and I don't blame 'em.  The one that's
+here, though, is so friendless and alone in the world that she might be glad
+enough to get a home almost anywheres."
+
+"Well, well! Tell me about her," said Holcroft gloomily. "But I'm about
+discouraged in the line of women help."
+
+Watterly told Alida's story with a certain rude pathos which touched the
+farmer's naturally kind heart, and he quite forgot his own need in indignation
+at the poor woman's wrongs. "It's a **** shame!" he said excitedly, pacing the
+room. "I say, Tom, all the law in the land wouldn't keep me from giving that
+fellow a whipping or worse."
+
+"Well, she won't prosecute; she won't face the public; she just wants to go to
+some quiet place and work for her bread.  She don't seem to have any friends,
+or else she's too ashamed to let them know."
+
+"Why, of course I'd give such a woman a refuge till she could do better.  What
+man wouldn't?"
+
+"A good many wouldn't.  What's more, if she went with you her story might get
+out, and you'd both be talked about."
+
+"I don't care that for gossip," with a snap of his fingers. "You know I'd
+treat her with respect."
+
+"What I know, and what other people would say, are two very different things. 
+Neither you nor anyone else can go too strongly against public opinion. 
+Still, it's nobody's business," added Tom thoughtfully. "Perhaps it's worth
+the trial.  If she went I think she'd stay and do the best by you she could. 
+Would you like to see her?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Alida was summoned and stood with downcast eyes in the door. "Come in and take
+a chair," said Tom kindly. "You know I promised to be on the lookout for a
+good place for you.  Well, my friend here, Mr. Holcroft, whom I've known ever
+since I was a boy, wants a woman to do general housework and take care of the
+dairy."
+
+She gave the farmer one of those swift, comprehensive glances by which women
+take in a personality, and said in a tone of regret, "But I don't understand
+dairy work."
+
+"Oh, you'd soon learn.  It's just the kind of a place you said you wanted, a
+lonely, out-of-the-way farm and no other help kept. What's more, my friend
+Holcroft is a kind, honest man.  He'd treat you right.  He knows all about
+your trouble and is sorry for you."
+
+If Holcroft had been an ogre in appearance, he would have received the
+grateful glance which she now gave him as she said, "I'd be only too glad to
+work for you, sir, if you think I can do, or learn to do, what is required."
+
+Holcroft, while his friend was speaking, had studied closely Alida's thin,
+pale face, and he saw nothing in it not in harmony with the story he had
+heard. "I am sorry for you," he said kindly. "I believe you never meant to do
+wrong and have tried to do right.  I will be perfectly honest with you.  My
+wife is dead, the help I had has left me, and I live alone in the house.  The
+truth is, too, that I could not afford to keep two in help, and there would
+not be work for them both."
+
+Alida had learned much in her terrible adversity, and had, moreover the
+instincts of a class superior to the position she was asked to take.  She
+bowed low to hide the burning flush that crimsoned her pale cheeks as she
+faltered, "It may seem strange to you, sirs, that one situated as I am should
+hesitate, but I have never knowingly done anything which gave people the right
+to speak against me.  I do not fear work, I would humbly try to do my best,
+but--" She hesitated and rose as if to retire.
+
+"I understand you," said Holcroft kindly, "and I don't blame you for doing
+what you think is right."
+
+"I'm very sorry, sir," she replied, tears coming into her eyes as she went out
+of the room.
+
+"There it is, Holcroft," said Tom. "I believe she's just the one for you, but
+you can see she isn't of the common kind.  She knows as well as you and me how
+people would talk, especially if her story came out, as like enough it will."
+
+"Hang people!" snarled the farmer.
+
+"Yes, a good lot of 'em deserve hanging, but it wouldn't help you any just
+now.  Perhaps she'd go with you if you got another girl or took an old woman
+from the house here to keep her company."
+
+"I'm sick to death of such hags," said the farmer with an impatient gesture. 
+Then he sat down and looked at his friend as if a plan was forming in his mind
+of which he scarcely dare speak.
+
+"Well, out with it!" said Tom.
+
+"Have you ever seen a marriage ceremony performed by a justice of the peace?"
+Holcroft asked slowly.
+
+"No, but they do it often enough.  What!  Are you going to offer her
+marriage?"
+
+"You say she is homeless and friendless?'
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you believe she is just what she seems--just what her story shows her to
+be?"
+
+"Yes.  I've seen too many frauds to be taken in.  She isn't a fraud.  Neither
+does she belong to that miserable, wishy-washy, downhill class that sooner or
+later fetches up in a poorhouse.  They say we're all made of dust, but some
+seem made of mud.  You could see she was out of the common; and she's here on
+account of the wrong she received and not the wrong she did.  I say all this
+in fairness to her; but when it comes to marrying her, that's another
+question."
+
+"Tom, as I've told you, I don't want to marry.  In fact, I couldn't go before
+a minister and promise what I'd have to.  But I could do something like this. 
+I could give this woman an honest name and a home.  It would be marriage
+before the law.  No one could ever say a word against either of us.  I would
+be true and kind to her and she should share in my fortunes.  That's all. You
+have often advised me to marry, and you know if I did it couldn't be anything
+else but a business affair.  Then it ought to be done in a businesslike way. 
+You say I can't get along alone, and like enough you're right.  I've learned
+more from this woman's manner than I have in a year why I can't get and keep
+the right kind of help, and I now feel if I could find a good, honest woman
+who would make my interest hers, and help me make a living in my own home, I'd
+give her my name and all the security which an honest name conveys.  Now, this
+poor woman is in sore need and she might be grateful for what I can do, while
+any other woman would naturally expect me to promise more than I honestly can. 
+Anyhow, I'd have to go through the form, and I can't and won't go and say
+sacred words--just about what I said when I married my wife--and know all the
+time I was lying."
+
+"Well, Holcroft, you're a queer dick and this is a queer plan of yours. 
+You're beyond my depth now and I can't advise."
+
+"Why is it a queer plan? Things only seem odd because they are not common.  As
+a matter of fact, you advise a business marriage. When I try to follow your
+advice honestly and not dishonestly, you say I'm queer."
+
+"I suppose if everybody became honest, it would be the queerest world every
+known," said Tom laughing. "Well, you might do worse than marry this woman.  I
+can tell you that marrying is risky business at best.  You know a justice will
+tie you just as tight as a minister, and while I've given you my impression
+about this woman, I KNOW little about her and you know next to nothing."
+
+"I guess that would be the case, anyhow.  If you set out to find a wife for
+me, where is there a woman that you actually do know more about?  As for my
+going here and there, to get acquainted, it's out of the question.  All my
+feelings rise up against such a course.  Now, I feel sorry for this woman. 
+She has at least my sympathy.  If she is as friendless, poor, and unhappy as
+she seems, I might do her as great a kindness as she would do for me if she
+could take care of my home.  I wouldn't expect very much.  It would be a
+comfort just to have someone in the house that wouldn't rob or waste, and who,
+knowing what her station was, would be content.  Of course I'd have to talk it
+over with her and make my purpose clear.  She might agree with you that it's
+too queer to be thought of.  If so, that would be the end of it."
+
+"Will, Jim, you always finish by half talking me over to your side of a
+question.  Now, if my wife was home, I don't believe she'd listen to any such
+plan."
+
+"No, I suppose she wouldn't.  She'd believe in people marrying and doing
+everything in the ordinary way.  But neither I nor this woman is in ordinary
+circumstances.  Do you know of a justice?"
+
+"Yes, and you know him, too; Justice Harkins."
+
+"Why, certainly.  He came from our town and I knew him when he was a boy,
+although I haven't seen much of him of late years."
+
+"Well, shall I go and say to this woman--Alida Armstrong is her name now, I
+suppose--that you wish to see her again?"
+
+"Yes, I shall tell her the truth.  Then she can decide."
+
+
+Chapter XVIII. Holcroft Gives His Hand
+
+Alida was seated by a window with some of the mending in which she assisted,
+and, as usual, was apart by herself.  Watterly entered the large apartment
+quietly, and at first she did not observe him.  He had time to note that she
+was greatly dejected, and when she saw him she hastily wiped tears from her
+eyes.
+
+"You are a good deal cast down, Alida," he said, watching her closely.
+
+"I've reason to be.  I don't see any light ahead at all."
+
+"Well, you know the old saying, 'It's darkest before day.'  I want you to come
+with me again.  I think I've found a chance for you."
+
+She rose with alacrity and followed.  As soon as they were alone, he turned
+and looked her squarely in the face as he said gravely, "You have good common
+sense, haven't you?"
+
+"I don't know, sir," she faltered, perplexed and troubled by the question.
+
+"Well, you can understand this much, I suppose.  As superintendent of this
+house I have a responsible position, which I could easily lose if I allowed
+myself to be mixed up with anything wrong or improper.  To come right to the
+point, you don't know much about me and next to nothing of my friend Holcroft,
+but can't you see that even if I was a heartless, good-for-nothing fellow, it
+wouldn't be wise or safe for me to permit anything that wouldn't bear the
+light?"
+
+"I think you are an honest man, sir.  It would be strange if I did not have
+confidence when you have judged me and treated me so kindly.  But, Mr.
+Watterly, although helpless and friendless, I must try to do what I think is
+best.  If I accepted Mr. Holcroft's position it might do him harm.  You know
+how quick the world is to misjudge.  It would seem to confirm everything that
+has been said against me," and the same painful flush again overspread her
+features.
+
+"Well, Alida, all that you have to do is to listen patiently to my friend. 
+Whether you agree with his views or not, you will see that he is a
+good-hearted, honest man.  I want to prepare you for this talk by assuring you
+that I've known him since he was a boy, that he has lived all his life in this
+region and is known by many others, and that I wouldn't dare let him ask you
+to do anything wrong, even if I was bad enough."
+
+"I'm sure, sir, you don't wish me any harm," she again faltered in deep
+perplexity.
+
+"Indeed I don't.  I don't advise my friend's course; neither do I oppose it. 
+He's certainly old enough to act for himself.  I suppose I'm a rough counselor
+for a young woman, but since you appear to have so few friends I'm inclined to
+act as one.  Just you stand on the question of right and wrong, and dismiss
+from your mind all foolish notions of what people will say.  As a rule, all
+the people in the world can't do as much for us as somebody in particular. 
+Now you go in the parlor and listen like a sensible woman.  I'll be reading
+the paper, and the girl will be clearing off the table in the next room here."
+
+Puzzled and trembling, Alida entered the apartment where Holcroft was seated. 
+She was so embarrassed that she could not lift her eyes to him.
+
+"Please sit down," he said gravely, "and don't be troubled, much less
+frightened.  You are just as free to act as ever you were in your life."
+
+She sat down near the door and compelled herself to look at him, for she felt
+instinctively that she might gather more from the expression of his face than
+from his words.
+
+"Alida Armstrong is your name, Mr. Watterly tells me?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, Alida, I want to have a plain business talk with you.  That's nothing
+to be nervous and worried about, you know.  As I told you, I've heard your
+story.  It has made me sorry for you instead of setting me against you.  It
+has made me respect you as a right-minded woman, and I shall give you good
+proof that my words are true.  At the same time, I shan't make any false
+pretenses to what isn't true and couldn't be true.  Since I've heard your
+story, it's only fair you should hear mine, and I ought to tell it first."
+
+He went over the past very briefly until he came to the death of his wife. 
+There was simple and homely pathos in the few sentences with which he referred
+to this event.  Then more fully he enlarged upon his efforts and failure to
+keep house with hired help.  Unconsciously, he had taken the best method to
+enlist her sympathy.  The secluded cottage and hillside farm became realities
+to her fancy.  She saw how the man's heart clung to his home, and his effort
+to keep it touched her deeply.
+
+"Oh!" she thought, "I do wish there was some way for me to go there.  The
+loneliness of the place which drove others away is the chief attraction for
+me.  Then it would be pleasant to work for such a man and make his home
+comfortable for him.  It's plain from his words and looks that he's as honest
+and straightforward as the day is long.  He only wants to keep his home and
+make his living in peace."
+
+As he had talked her nervous embarrassment passed away, and the deep sense of
+her own need was pressing upon her again.  She saw that he also was in great
+need.  His business talk was revealing deep trouble and perplexity.  With the
+quick intuitions of a woman, her mind went far beyond his brief sentences and
+saw all the difficulties of his lot.  His feeling reference to the loss of his
+wife proved that he was not a coarse-natured man.  As he spoke so plainly of
+his life during the past year, her mind was insensibly abstracted from
+everything but his want and hers, and she thought his farmhouse afforded just
+the secluded refuge she craved.  As he drew near the end of his story and
+hesitated in visible embarrassment, she mustered courage to say timidly,
+"Would you permit a suggestion from me?"
+
+"Why, certainly."
+
+"You have said, sir, that your business and means would not allow you to keep
+two in help, and as you have been speaking I have tried to think of some way. 
+The fact that your house is so lonely is just the reason why I should like to
+work in it.  As you can understand, I have no wish to meet strangers.  Now,
+sir, I am willing to work for very little; I should be glad to find such a
+quiet refuge for simply my board and clothes, and I would do my very best and
+try to learn what I did not know.  It seems to me that if I worked for so
+little you might think you could afford to hire some elderly woman also?" and
+she looked at him in the eager hope that he would accept her proposition.
+
+He shook his head as he replied, "I don't know of any such person.  I took the
+best one in this house, and you know how she turned out."
+
+"Perhaps Mr. Watterly may know of someone else," she faltered.  She was now
+deeply troubled and perplexed again, supposing that he was about to renew his
+first proposition that she should be his only help.
+
+"If Mr. Watterly did know of anyone I would make the trial, but he does not. 
+Your offer is very considerate and reasonable, but--" and he hesitated again,
+scarcely knowing how to go on.
+
+"I am sorry, sir," she said, rising, as if to end the interview.
+
+"Stay," he said, "you do not understand me yet.  Of course I should not make
+you the same offer that I did at first, after seeing your feeling about it,
+and I respect you all the more because you so respect yourself.  What I had in
+mind was to give you my name, and it's an honest name.  If we were married it
+would be perfectly proper for you to go with me, and no one could say a word
+against either of us."
+
+"Oh!" she gasped, in strong agitation and surprise.
+
+"Now don't be so taken aback.  It's just as easy for you to refuse as it is to
+speak, but listen first.  What seems strange and unexpected may be the most
+sensible thing for us both.  You have your side of the case to think of just
+as truly as I have mine; and I'm not forgetting, and I don't ask you to
+forget, that I'm still talking business.  You and I have both been through too
+much trouble and loss to say any silly nonsense to each other.  You've heard
+my story, yet I'm almost a stranger to you as you are to me.  We'd both have
+to take considerable on trust.  Yet I know I'm honest and well-meaning, and I
+believe you are.  Now look at it.  Here we are, both much alone in the
+world--both wishing to live a retired, quiet life.  I don't care a rap for
+what people say as long as I'm doing right, and in this case they'd have
+nothing to say.  It's our own business.  I don't see as people will ever do
+much for you, and a good many would impose on you and expect you to work
+beyond your strength.  They might not be very kind or considerate, either.  I
+suppose you've thought of this?"
+
+"Yes," she replied with bowed head. "I should meet coldness, probably
+harshness and scorn."
+
+"Well, you'd never meet anything of the kind in my house.  I would treat you
+with respect and kindness.  At the same time, I'm not going to mislead you by
+a word.  You shall have a chance to decide in view of the whole truth.  My
+friend, Mr. Watterly, has asked me more'n once, 'Why don't you marry again?' 
+I told him I had been married once, and that I couldn't go before a minister
+and promise the same things over again when they wasn't true.  I can't make to
+you any promises or say any words that are not true, and I don't ask or expect
+you to do what I can't do.  But it has seemed to me that our condition was out
+of the common lot--that we could take each other for just what we might be to
+each other and no more.  You would be my wife in name, and I do not ask you to
+be my wife in more than name.  You would thus secure a good home and the care
+and protection of one who would be kind to you, and I would secure a
+housekeeper--one that would stay with me and make my interests hers.  It would
+be a fair, square arrangement between ourselves, and nobody else's business. 
+By taking this course, we don't do any wrong to our feelings or have to say or
+promise anything that isn't true."
+
+"Yet I can't help saying, sir," she replied, in strong, yet repressed
+agitation, "that your words sound very strange; and it seems stranger still
+that you can offer marriage of any kind to a woman situated as I am.  You know
+my story, sir," she added, crimsoning, "and all may soon know it.  You would
+suffer wrong and injury."
+
+"I offer you open and honorable marriage before the world, and no other kind. 
+Mr. Watterly and others--as many as you pleased--would witness it, and I'd
+have you given a certificate at once.  As for your story, it has only awakened
+my sympathy.  You have not meant to do any wrong.  Your troubles are only
+another reason in my mind for not taking any advantage of you or deceiving you
+in the least.  Look the truth squarely in the face.  I'm bent on keeping my
+house and getting my living as I have done, and I need a housekeeper that will
+be true to all my interests.  Think how I've been robbed and wronged, and what
+a dog's life I've lived in my own home.  You need a home, a support, and a
+protector.  I couldn't come to you or go to any other woman and say honestly
+more than this.  Isn't it better for people to be united on the ground of
+truth than to begin by telling a pack of lies?"
+
+"But--but can people be married with such an understanding by a minister? 
+Wouldn't it be deceiving him?"
+
+"I shall not ask you to deceive anyone.  Any marriage that either you or I
+could now make would be practically a business marriage. I should therefore
+take you, if you were willing, to a justice and have a legal or civil marriage
+performed, and this would be just as binding as any other in the eye of the
+law.  It is often done.  This would be much better to my mind than if people,
+situated as we are, went to a church or a minister."
+
+"Yes, yes, I couldn't do that."
+
+"Well, now, Alida," he said, with a smile that wonderfully softened his rugged
+features, "you are free to decide.  It may seem to you a strange sort of
+courtship, but we are both too old for much foolishness.  I never was
+sentimental, and it would be ridiculous to begin now.  I'm full of trouble and
+perplexity, and so are you.  Are you willing to be my wife so far as an honest
+name goes, and help me make a living for us both?  That's all I ask.  I, in my
+turn, would promise to treat you with kindness and respect, and give you a
+home as long as I lived and to leave you all I have in the world if I died. 
+That's all I could promise.  I'm a lonely, quiet man, and like to be by
+myself.  I wouldn't be much society for you.  I've said more today than I
+might in a month, for I felt that it was due to you to know just what you were
+doing."
+
+"Oh, sir," said Alida, trembling, and with tears in her eyes, "you do not ask
+much and you offer a great deal.  If you, a strong man, dread to leave your
+home and go out into the world you know not where, think how terrible it is
+for a weak, friendless woman to be worse than homeless.  I have lost
+everything, even my good name."
+
+"No, no!  Not in my eyes."
+
+"Oh, I know, I know!" she cried, wringing her hands. "Even these miserable
+paupers like myself have made me feel it.  They have burned the truth into my
+brain and heart.  Indeed, sir, you do not realize what you are doing or
+asking.  It is not fit or meet that I should bear your name.  You might be
+sorry, indeed."
+
+"Alida," said Holcroft gravely, "I've not forgotten your story, and you
+shouldn't forget mine.  Be sensible now.  Don't I look old enough to know what
+I'm about?"
+
+"Oh, oh, oh!" she cried impetuously, "if I were only sure it was right!  It
+may be business to you, but it seems like life or death to me.  It's more than
+death--I don't fear that--but I do fear life, I do fear the desperate struggle
+just to maintain a bare, dreary existence.  I do dread going out among
+strangers and seeing their cold curiosity and their scorn.  You can't
+understand a woman's heart.  It isn't right for me to die till God takes me,
+but life has seemed so horrible, meeting suspicion on one side and cruel,
+significant looks of knowledge on the other.  I've been tortured even here by
+these wretched hags, and I've envied even them, so near to death, yet not
+ashamed like me. I know, and you should know, that my heart is broken,
+crushed, trampled into the mire.  I had felt that for me even the thought of
+marriage again would be a mockery, a wicked thing, which I would never have a
+right to entertain.--I never dreamt that anyone would think of such a thing,
+knowing what you know.  Oh, oh!  Why have you tempted me so if it is not
+right?  I must do right.  The feeling that I've not meant to do wrong is all
+that has kept me from despair.  But can it be right to let you take me from
+the street, the poorhouse, with nothing to give but a blighted name, a broken
+heart and feeble hands!  See, I am but the shadow of what I was, and a dark
+shadow at that.  I could be only a dismal shadow at any man's hearth.  Oh, oh! 
+I've thought and suffered until my reason seemed going.  You don't realize,
+you don't know the depths into which I've fallen.  It can't be right."
+
+Holcroft was almost appalled at this passionate outburst in one who thus far
+had been sad, indeed, yet self-controlled.  He looked at her in mingled pity
+and consternation.  His own troubles had seemed heavy enough, but he now
+caught glimpses of something far beyond trouble--of agony, of mortal dread
+that bordered on despair.  He could scarcely comprehend how terrible to a
+woman like Alida were the recent events of her life, and how circumstances,
+with illness, had all tended to create a morbid horror of her situation.  Like
+himself she was naturally reticent in regard to her deeper feelings, patient
+and undemonstrative.  Had not his words evoked this outburst she might have
+suffered and died in silence, but in this final conflict between conscience
+and hope, the hot lava of her heart had broken forth.  So little was he then
+able to understand her, that suspicions crossed his mind.  Perhaps his friend
+Watterly had not heard the true story or else not the whole story.  But his
+straightforward simplicity stood him in good stead, and he said gently,
+"Alida, you say I don't know, I don't realize.  I believe you will tell me the
+truth.  You went to a minister and were married to a man that you thought you
+had a right to marry--"
+
+"You shall know it all from my own lips," she said, interrupting him; "you
+have a right to know; and then you will see that it cannot be," and with bowed
+head, and low, rapid, passionate utterance, she poured out her story. "That
+woman, his wife," she concluded, "made me feel that I was of the scum and
+offscouring of the earth, and they've made me feel so here, too--even these
+wretched paupers.  So the world will look on me till God takes me to my
+mother.  O, thank God! She don't know.  Don' you see, now?" she asked, raising
+her despairing eyes from which agony had dried all tears.
+
+"Yes, I see you do," she added desperately, "for even you have turned from
+me."
+
+"Confound it!" cried Holcroft, standing up and searching his pockets for a
+handkerchief. "I--I--I'd like--like to choke that fellow.  If I could get my
+hands on him, there'd be trouble.  Turn away from you, you poor wronged
+creature!  Don't you see I'm so sorry for you that I'm making a fool of
+myself?  I, who couldn't shed a tear over my own troubles--there, there,--come
+now, let us be sensible.  Let's get back to business, for I can't stand this
+kind of thing at all.  I'm so confused betwixt rage at him and pity for
+you--Let me see; this is where we were: I want someone to take care of my
+home, and you want a home.  That's all there is about it now.  If you say so,
+I'll make you Mrs. Holcroft in an hour."
+
+"I did not mean to work upon your sympathies, only to tell you the truth.  God
+bless you!  That the impulses of your heart are so kind and merciful.  But let
+me be true to you as well as to myself.  Go away and think it all over calmly
+and quietly.  Even for the sake of being rescued from a life that I dread far
+more than death, I cannot let you do that which you may regret unspeakably. 
+Do not think I misunderstand your offer.  It's the only one I could think of,
+and I would not have thought of it if you had not spoke.  I have no heart to
+give.  I could be a wife only in name, but I could work like a slave for
+protection from a cruel, jeering world; I could hope for something like peace
+and respite from suffering if I only had a safe refuge.  But I must not have
+these if it is not right and best.  Good to me must not come through wrong to
+you."
+
+"Tush, tush!  You mustn't talk so.  I can't stand it at all.  I've heard your
+story.  It's just as I supposed at first, only a great deal more so.  Why, of
+course it's all right.  It makes me believe in Providence, it all turns out so
+entirely for our mutual good.  I can do as much to help you as you to help me. 
+Now let's get back on the sensible, solid ground from which we started.  The
+idea of my wanting you to work like a slave!  Like enough some people would,
+and then you'd soon break down and be brought back here again.  No, no; I've
+explained just what I wish and just what I mean.  You must get over the notion
+that I'm a sentimental fool, carried away by my feelings.  How Tom Watterly
+would laugh at the idea!  My mind is made up now just as much as it would be a
+week hence.  This is no place for you, and I don't like to think of your being
+here.  My spring work is pressing, too.  Don't you see that by doing what I
+ask you can set me right on my feet and start me uphill again after a year of
+miserable downhill work?  You have only to agree to what I've said, and you
+will be at home tonight and I'll be quietly at my work tomorrow.  Mr. Watterly
+will go with us to the justice, who has known me all my life.  Then, if anyone
+ever says a word against you, he'll have me to settle with.  Come, Alida! 
+Here's a strong hand that's able to take care of you."
+
+She hesitated a moment, then clasped it like one who is sinking, and before he
+divined her purpose, she kissed and bedewed it with tears.
+
+
+Chapter XIX. A Business Marriage
+
+While Holcroft's sympathies had been deeply touched by the intense emotion of
+gratitude which had overpowered Alida, he had also been disturbed and rendered
+somewhat anxious.  He was actually troubled lest the woman he was about to
+marry should speedily begin to love him, and develop a tendency to manifest
+her affection in a manner that would seem to him extravagant and certainly
+disagreeable.  Accustomed all his life to repress his feelings, he wondered at
+himself and could not understand how he had given way so unexpectedly.  He was
+not sufficiently versed in human nature to know that the depth of Alida's
+distress was the adequate cause.  If there had been a false or an affected
+word, he would have remained cool enough.  In his inability to gauge his own
+nature as well as hers, he feared lest this businesslike marriage was verging
+toward sentiment on her part.  He did not like her kissing his hand.  He was
+profoundly sorry for her, but so he would have been for any other woman
+suffering under the burden of a great wrong.  He felt that it would be
+embarrassing if she entertained sentiments toward him which he could not
+reciprocate, and open manifestations of regard would remind him of that horror
+of his life, Mrs. Mumpson.  He was not incapable of quick, strong sympathy in
+any instance of genuine trouble, but he was one of those men who would shrink
+in natural recoil from any marked evidence of a woman's preference unless the
+counterpart of her regard existed in his own breast.
+
+To a woman of Alida's intuition the way in which he withdrew his hand and the
+expression of his face had a world of meaning.  She would not need a second
+hint.  Yet she did not misjudge him; she knew that he meant what he had said
+and had said all that he meant.  She was also aware that he had not and never
+could understand the depths of fear and suffering from which his hand was
+lifting her.  Her gratitude was akin to that of a lost soul saved, and that
+was all she had involuntarily expressed.  She sat down again and quietly dried
+her eyes, while in her heart she purposed to show her gratitude by patient
+assiduity in learning to do what he required.
+
+Holcroft was now bent upon carrying out his plan as quickly as possible and
+returning home.  He therefore asked, "Can you go with me at once, Alida?"
+
+She simply bowed her acquiescence.
+
+"That's sensible.  Perhaps you had better get your things ready while I and
+Mr. Watterly go and arrange with Justice Harkins."
+
+Alida averted her face with a sort of shame which a woman feels who admits
+such a truth. "I haven't anything, sir, but a hat and cloak to put on.  I came
+away and left everything."
+
+"And I'm glad of it," said Holcroft heartily. "I wouldn't want you to bring
+anything which that scoundrel gave you."  He paced the room thoughtfully a
+moment or two and then he called Watterly in.  "It's settled, Tom.  Alida will
+be Mrs. Holcroft as soon as we can see the justice.  Do you think we could
+persuade him to come here?"
+
+"One thing at a time.  Mrs. Holcroft,--I may as well call you so, for when my
+friend says he'll do a thing he does it,--I congratulate you.  I think you are
+well out of your troubles.  Since you are to marry my old friend, we must be
+friends, too," and he shook her heartily by the hand.
+
+His words and manner were another ray of light--a welcome rift in the black
+pall that had gathered round her.
+
+"You were the first friend I found, sir, after--what happened," she said
+gratefully.
+
+"Well, you've found another and a better one; and he'll always be just the
+same.  Any woman might be glad--"
+
+"Come, Tom, no more of that.  I'm a plain old farmer that does what he agrees,
+and that's all there is about it.  I've told Alida just what I wished and
+could do--"
+
+"I should hope so," interrupted Watterly, laughing. "You've taken time enough,
+certainly, and I guess you've talked more than you have before in a year."
+
+"Yes, I know I'm almost as bad as an oyster about talking except when I'm with
+you.  Somehow we've always had a good deal to say to each other.  In this
+case, I felt that it was due to Alida that she should know all about me and
+understand fully just how I felt concerning this marriage.  The very fact that
+she hasn't friends to advise her made it all the more needful that I should be
+plain and not mislead her in any respect.--She has just as good a right to
+judge and act for herself as any woman in the land, and she takes me, and I
+take her, with no sentimental lies to start with.  Now let's get back to
+business.  I rather think, since Harkins was an old acquaintance of mine,
+he'll come up here and marry us, don't you?  Alida, wouldn't you rather be
+married here quietly than face a lot of strangers?  You can have your own way, 
+I don't care now if half the town was present."
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed, sir!  I don't want to meet strangers--and--and--I'm not very
+strong yet.  I thank you for considering my feelings so kindly."
+
+"Why, that's my duty," replied the farmer. "Come, Watterly, the sun is getting
+low, and we've considerable to do yet before we start home."
+
+"I'm with you.  Now, Alida, you go back quietly and act as if nothing had
+happened till I send for you.  Of course this impatient young groom will hurry
+back with the justice as fast as possible.  Still, we may not find him, or he
+may be so busy that we shall have to come back for you and take you to his
+office."
+
+As she turned to leave the room, Holcroft gave her his hand and said kindly,
+"Now don't you be nervous or worried.  I see you are not strong, and you shall
+not be taxed any more than I can help.  Goodby for a little while."
+
+Meantime Watterly stepped out a moment and gave his domestic a few orders;
+then he accompanied Holcroft to the barn, and the horses were soon attached to
+the market wagon. "You're in for it now, Jim, sure enough," he said laughing.
+"What will Angy say to it all?"
+
+"Tell her that I say you've been a mighty good friend to me, yet I hope I may
+never return any favors of the same kind."
+
+"By jocks!  I hope not.  I guess it's just as well she was away.  She'll think
+we've acted just like two harum-scarum men, and will be awfully scandalized
+over your marrying this woman.  Don't you feel a little nervous about it?"
+
+"No!  When my mind's made up, I don't worry.  Nobody else need lie awake for
+it's my affair."
+
+"Well, Jim, you know how I feel about it, but I've got to say something and I
+might as well say it plain."
+
+"That's the only way you ought to say it."
+
+"Well, you talked long enough to give me plenty of time to think. One thing is
+clear, Angy won't take to this marriage.  You know I'd like to have you both
+come in and take a meal as you always have done, but then a man must keep
+peace with his wife, and--"
+
+"I understand, Tom.  We won't come till Mrs. Watterly asks us."
+
+"But you won't have hard feelings?"
+
+"No, indeed.  Aint you doing your level best as a friend?"
+
+"Well, you know women are so set about these things, and Angy is rather hard
+on people who don't come up to her mark of respectability.  What's more, I
+suppose you'll find that others will think and act as she does.  If you cared
+about people's opinions I should have been dead against it, but as you feel
+and are situated, I'm hanged if I don't think she's just the one."
+
+"If it hadn't been this one, I don't believe it would have been anyone.  Here
+we are," and he tied his horses before the office of the justice.
+
+Mr. Harkins greeted Holcroft with a sort of patronizing cordiality, and was
+good enough to remember that they had been at the little country schoolhouse
+together.  In Watterly he heartily recognized a brother politician who
+controlled a goodly number of votes.
+
+When Holcroft briefly made known his errand, the justice gave a great guffaw
+of laughter and said, "Oh, bring her here!  And I'll invite in some of the
+boys as witnesses."
+
+"I'm not afraid of all the witnesses that you could crowd into a ten-acre
+lot," said Holcroft somewhat sternly, "but there is no occasion to invite the
+boys, whoever they are, or anyone else.  She doesn't want to be stared at.  I
+was in hopes, Mr. Harkins, that you'd ride up to the almshouse with us and
+quietly marry us there."
+
+"Well, I guess you'd better bring her here.  I'm pretty busy this afternoon,
+and--"
+
+"See here, Ben," said Watterly, taking the justice aside, "Holcroft is my
+friend, and you know I'm mighty thick with my friends.  They count more with
+me than my wife's relations.  Now I want you to do what Holcroft wishes, as a
+personal favor to me, and the time will come when I can make it up to you."
+
+"Oh, certainly, Watterly!  I didn't understand," replied Harkins, who looked
+upon Holcroft as a close and, as he would phrase it, no-account farmer, from
+whom he could never expect even a vote. "I'll go with you at once.  It's but a
+short job."
+
+"Well," said Holcroft, "how short can you make it?"
+
+"Let me get my book," and he took from a shelf the "Justice's Assistant." 
+"You can't want anything shorter than this?" and he read, "'By this act of
+joining hands you do take each other as husband and wife and solemnly engage
+in the presence of these witnesses to love and honor and comfort and cherish
+each other as such so long as you both shall live.  Therefore, in accordance
+with the law of the state of New York I do hereby pronounce you husband and
+wife.'  A sailor couldn't tie a knot quicker than that."
+
+"I guess you can, justice," said Holcroft, taking the book. "Suppose you only
+read this much: 'By this act of joining hands you do take each other as
+husband and wife.  Therefore, in accordance with the law, etc.'  Would that be
+a legal marriage?"
+
+"Certainly.  You'd have to go to a divorce court to get out of that."
+
+"It's my purpose to keep out of courts of all kinds.  I'll thank you to read
+just that much and no more.  I don't want to say anything that isn't exactly
+true."
+
+"You see how it is, Ben.  Holcroft hasn't known the woman long, and she's a
+nice woman, too, if she is boarding at my hotel.  Holcroft needs a wife--must
+have one, in fact, to help run his house and dairy.  It wasn't exactly a love
+match, you know; and he's that kind of a man that a yoke of oxen couldn't draw
+a word out of him that he didn't mean."
+
+"Yes, yes, I see now," said Harkins. "I'll read just what you say and no
+more."
+
+"And I'll have a little spread that we can be longer at than the ceremony,"
+added Watterly, who was inclined to be a little hilarious over the affair.
+
+Holcroft, however, maintained his grave manner, and when they reached the
+almshouse he took Watterly aside and said, "See here, Tom, you've been a good
+friend today and seconded me in everything.  Now let the affair pass off just
+as quietly and seriously as possible.  She's too cast down for a gay wedding. 
+Suppose we had a daughter who'd been through such an experience--a nice, good,
+modest girl.  Her heart's too sore for fun and jokes.  My marrying her is much
+the same as pulling her out of deep water in which she was sinking."
+
+"You're right, Jim.  I didn't think, and one doesn't have much cause to be so
+sparing of the feelings of such creatures as come here.  But she's out of the
+common run, and I ought to have remembered it.  By jocks!  You're mighty
+careful about promising to love, cherish, and obey, and all that, but I guess
+you'll do a sight more than many who do promise."
+
+"Of course I'm going to be kind.  That's my duty.  Give Harkins a hint.  Tell
+him that she's lost her mother.  He needn't know when the old lady died, but
+it will kind of solemnize him."
+
+Watterly did as requested, and Harkins, now convinced that his political
+interests could be furthered by careful compliance with all requirements, put
+on a grave, official air and was ready for business.
+
+Alida was sent for.  She was too agitated to say farewell to any of the poor
+creatures with whom she had been compelled to associate--even to the few who,
+though scarcely sane, had manifested tenderness and affection.  She had felt
+that she must reserve all her strength for the coming ordeal, which she both
+welcomed and feared inexpressibly.  She knew how critical was the step she was
+taking and how much depended on it, yet the more she thought, the more it
+seemed to her as if Providence had, as by a miracle, given her a refuge. 
+Holcroft's businesslike view of the marriage comforted her greatly, and she
+asked God to give her health and strength to work faithfully for him many
+years.
+
+But she had sad misgivings as she followed the messenger, for she felt so weak
+that she could scarcely walk.  It was indeed a pallid, sorrowful, trembling
+bride that entered Mr.Watterly's parlor.  Holcroft met her and taking her
+hand, said kindly, "Courage!  It will be over in a minute."
+
+She was so pale and agitated that the justice asked, "do you enter into this
+marriage freely and without compulsion of any kind?"
+
+"Please let me sit down a moment," she faltered, and Watterly hastened to give
+her a chair.  She fixed her eyes on Holcroft, and said anxiously, "You see,
+sir, how weak I am.  I have been sick and--and I fear I am far from being well
+now.  I fear you will be disappointed--that it is not right to you, and that I
+may not be able--"
+
+"Alida," interrupted Holcroft gravely, "I'm not one to break my word.  Home
+and quiet will soon restore you.  Answer the justice and tell him the exact
+truth."
+
+No elixir could have brought hope and courage like that word "home."  She rose
+at once and said to Harkins, "I have consented to Mr. Holcroft's wishes with
+feelings of the deepest gratitude."
+
+"Very well.  Join hands."
+
+She hesitated and looked for a moment at Holcroft with strange intensity.
+
+"It's all right, Alida," he said with a smile. "Come!"
+
+His perfect honesty and steadfastness of purpose stood him in good stead then,
+for she came at once to his side and took his hand.
+
+Justice Harkins solemnly opened his big book and read, "'By this act of
+joining hands you do take each other as husband and wife.  Therefore, in
+accordance with the law of the State of New York, I do hereby pronounce you
+husband and wife.'  That's all."
+
+"I don't think you'll ever be sorry, Alida," said Holcroft, pressing her hand
+as he led her to a chair.  Watterly again bustled up with congratulations, and
+then said, "you must all come out now to a little supper, and also remember
+that it was gotten up in a hurry."
+
+The domestic stared at Alida and Holcroft, and then surmising what had taken
+place, was so excited that she could scarcely wait on the guests.
+
+Holcroft, with the simple tact which genuine kindness usually suggests, was
+attentive to his bride, but managed, by no slight effort for him, to engage
+the two men in general conversation, so that Alida might have time to recover
+her composure.  His quiet, matter-of-fact bearing was reassuring in itself.  A
+cup of strong tea and a little old currant wine, which Watterly insisted on
+her taking, brightened her up not a little.  Indeed her weakness was now
+largely due to the want of nourishment suited to her feeble condition. 
+Moreover, both nerves and mind found relief and rest in the consciousness that
+the decisive step had been taken.  She was no longer shuddering and recoiling
+from a past in which each day had revealed more disheartening elements.  Her
+face was now toward a future that promised a refuge, security, and even hope.
+
+The quiet meal was soon over.  Holcroft put a five-dollar bill in the hands of
+the justice, who filled in a certificate and departed, feeling that the
+afternoon had not been spent in vain.
+
+"Jim," said Watterly, drawing his friend aside, "you'll want to make some
+purchases.  You know she's only what she wears.  How are you off for money?"
+
+"Well, Tom, you know I didn't expect anything of this kind when--"
+
+"Of course I know it.  Will fifty answer?"
+
+"Yes.  You're a good friend.  I'll return it in a day or two."
+
+"Return it when you're a mind to.  I say, Alida, I want you to take this.  Jim
+Holcroft can't get married and his bride not receive a present from me," and
+he put ten dollars in her hand.
+
+Tears rushed to her eyes as she turned them inquiringly to Holcroft to know
+what she should do.
+
+"Now see here, Tom, you've done too much for us already."
+
+"Shut up, Jim Holcroft!  Don't you end the day by hurting my feelings!  It's
+perfectly right and proper for me to do this.  Goodby, Alida.  I don't believe
+you'll ever be sorry you found your way to my hotel."
+
+Alida took his proffered hand, but could only falter, "I--I can never forget."
+
+
+Chapter XX. Uncle Jonathan's Impression of the Bride
+
+"Now, Alida," said Holcroft, as they drove away, "remember that we are two
+middle-aged, sensible people.  At least I'm middle-aged, and fairly sensible,
+too, I hope.  You'll need to buy some things, and I want you to get all you
+need.  Don't stint yourself, and you needn't hurry so as to get tired, for we
+shall have moonlight and there's no use trying to get home before dark. Is
+there any particular store which you'd like to go to?"
+
+"No, sir; only I'd rather go over on the east side of the town where I'm not
+known."
+
+"That suits me, for it's the side nearest home and I AM known there."
+
+"Perhaps--perhaps you also would rather go this evening where you are not
+known," she said hesitatingly.
+
+"It makes no difference to me.  In fact I know of a place where you'll have a
+good choice at reasonable rates."
+
+"I'll go where you wish," she said quietly.
+
+They soon entered a large shop together, and the proprietor said pleasantly,
+"Good evening, Mr. Holcroft."
+
+"Good evening, Mr. Jasper.  My wife wants to get some things.  If you'll be
+good enough to wait on her, I'll step out to do two or three errands."
+
+The merchant looked curiously at Alida, but was too polite to ask questions or
+make comments on her very simple purchases.  Her old skill and training were
+of service now.  She knew just what she absolutely needed, and bought no more.
+
+Holcroft laid in a good stock of groceries and some juicy beef and then
+returned.  When Mr. Jasper gave him his bill, he went to Alida, who was
+resting, and said in a low voice, "This won't do at all.  You can't have
+bought half enough."
+
+For the first time something like a smile flitted across her face as she
+replied, "It's enough to begin with.  I know."
+
+"Really, Mr. Holcroft, I didn't know you were married," said the merchant. "I
+must congratulate you."
+
+"Well, I am.  Thank you.  Good night."
+
+A few moments later he and his wife were bowling out of town toward the hills. 
+Reaching one of these, the horses came down to a walk and Holcroft turned and
+said, "Are you very tired, Alida?  I'm troubled about you taking this long
+ride.  You have been so sick."
+
+"I'm sorry I'm not stronger, sir, but the fresh air seems to do me good and I
+think I can stand it."
+
+"You didn't promise to obey me, did you?" with a rather nervous little laugh.
+
+"No, sir, but I will."
+
+"That's a good beginning.  Now see what an old tyrant I am.  In the first
+place, I don't want you to say 'sir' to me any more.  My name is James.  In
+the second place, you must work only as I let you.  Your first business is to
+get strong and well, and you know we agreed to marry on strictly business
+grounds."
+
+"I understand it well, but I think you are very kind for a business man."
+
+"Oh, as to that, if I do say it of myself, I don't think it's my nature to be
+hard on those who treat me square.  I think we shall be very good friends in
+our quiet way, and that's more than can be said of a good many who promise
+more than they seem to remember afterward."
+
+"I will try to do all you wish for I am very grateful."
+
+"If you do, you may find I'm as grateful as you are."
+
+"That can never be.  Your need and mine were very different.--But I shall try
+to show my gratitude by learning your ways and wishes and not by many words of
+thanks."
+
+"Thank the Lord!" mentally ejaculated the farmer, "there's no Mrs. Mumpson in
+this case;" but he only said kindly, "I think we understand each other now,
+Alida.  I'm not a man of words either, and I had better show by actions also
+what I am.  The fact is, although we are married, we are scarcely acquainted,
+and people can't get acquainted in a day."
+
+The first long hill was surmounted and away they bowled again, past cottage
+and farmhouse, through strips of woodland and between fields from which came
+the fragrance of the springing grass and the peepings of the hylas.  The moon
+soon rose, full-orbed, above the higher eastern hills, and the mild April
+evening became luminous and full of beauty.
+
+A healing sense of quiet and security already began to steal into Alida's
+bruised heart.  In turning her back upon the town in which she had suffered so
+greatly, she felt like one escaping from prison and torture.  An increasing
+assurance of safety came with every mile; the cool, still radiance of the
+night appeared typical of her new and most unexpected experience.  Light had
+risen on her shadowed path, but it was not warm, vivifying sunlight, which
+stimulates and develops.  A few hours before she was in darkness which might
+be felt--yet it was a gloom shot through and through with lurid threatening
+gleams.  It had seemed to her that she had fallen from home, happiness, and
+honor to unfathomed depths, and yet there had appeared to be deeper and darker
+abysses on every side.  She had shuddered at the thought of going out into the
+world, feeling that her misfortune would awaken suspicion rather than
+sympathy, scorn instead of kindness; that she must toil on until death, to
+sustain a life to which death would come as God's welcome messenger.  Then had
+come this man at her side, with his comparatively trivial troubles and
+perplexities, and he had asked her help--she who was so helpless.  He had
+banished despair from her earthly future, he had lifted her up and was bearing
+her away from all which she had so dreaded; nothing had been asked which her
+crushed spirit was unable to bestow; she was simply expected to aid him in his
+natural wish to keep his home and to live where he had always dwelt.  His very
+inability to understand her, to see her broken, trampled life and immeasurable
+need as she saw it, brought quietness of mind.  The concentration of his
+thoughts on a few homely and simple hopes gave her immunity.  With quick
+intuition, she divined that she had not a whimsical, jealous, exacting nature
+to deal with.  He was the plain, matter-of-fact man he seemed; so literal and
+absolutely truthful that he would appear odd to most people.  To her mind, his
+were the traits which she could now most welcome and value.  He knew all about
+her, she had merely to be herself, to do what she had promised, in order to
+rest securely on his rock-like truth.  He had again touched a deep, grateful
+chord in speaking of her to the shopkeeper as his wife; he showed no
+disposition whatever to shrink from the relation before the world; it was
+evident that he meant to treat her with respect and kindness, and to exact
+respect from others.  For all this, while sitting quietly and silently at his
+side, she thanked him almost passionately in her heart; but far more than for
+all this she was glad and grateful that he would not expect what she now felt
+it would be impossible for her to give--the love and personal devotion which
+had been inseparable from marriage in her girlhood thoughts.  He would make
+good his words--she should be his wife in name and be respected as such.  He
+was too simple and true to himself and his buried love, too considerate of
+her, to expect more.  She might hope, therefore, as he had said, that they
+might be helpful, loyal friends and he would have been surprised indeed had he
+known how the pale,  silent woman beside him was longing and hoping to fill
+his home with comfort.
+
+Thoughts like these had inspired and sustained her while at the same time
+ministering the balm of hope.  The quiet face of nature, lovely in the
+moonlight, seemed to welcome and reassure her.  Happy are those who, when
+sorely wounded in life, can turn to the natural world and find in every tree,
+shrub, and flower a comforting friend that will not turn from them.  Such are
+not far from God and peace.
+
+The range of Holcroft's thoughts was far simpler and narrower than Alida's. 
+He turned rather deliberately from the past, preferring to dwell on the
+probable consummation of his hope.  His home, his farm, were far more to him
+than the woman he had married.  He had wedded her for their sake, and his
+thoughts followed his heart, which was in his hillside acres.  It is said that
+women often marry for a home; he truly had done so to keep his home.  The
+question which now most occupied him was the prospect of doing this through
+quiet, prosperous years.  He dwelt minutely on Alida's manner, as well as her
+words, and found nothing to shake his belief that she had been as truthful as
+himself.  Nevertheless, he queried in regard to the future with not a little
+anxiety.  In her present distress and poverty she might naturally be glad of
+the refuge he had offered; but as time passed and the poignancy of bitter
+memories was allayed, might not her life on the farm seem monotonous and dull,
+might not weariness and discontent come into her eyes in place of gratitude? 
+"Well, well!" he concluded, "this marrying is a risky experiment at best, but
+Tom Watterly's talk and her manner seemed to shut me up to it.  I was made to
+feel that I couldn't go on in any other way; and I haven't done anything
+underhanded or wrong, as I see, for the chance of going on.  If I hadn't
+become such a heathen I should say there was a Providence in it, but I don't
+know what to think about such things any more.  Time'll show, and the prospect
+is better than it has been yet.  She'll never be sorry if she carries out the
+agreement made today, if kindness and good will can repay her."
+
+Thus it may be seen that, although two life currents had become parallel, they
+were still very distinct.
+
+By the time Holcroft approached the lane leading to his dwelling, Alida was
+growing very weary, and felt that her endurance had almost reached its limit. 
+Her face was so white in the moonlight that he asked solicitously, "You can
+stand it a little longer, can't you?"
+
+"I'll try.  I'm very sorry I'm not stronger."
+
+"Don't you worry about that!  You won't know yourself in a week.  Here we are
+at the lane and there's the house yonder.  A moment or two more and you'll be
+by the fire."
+
+A loud barking startled old Jonathan Johnson out of his doze, and he hastened
+to replenish the fire and to call off his rather savage dog.  He was a little
+surprised to see Holcroft drive toward the kitchen door with a woman by his
+side. "He's tried his luck with another of them town gals," he muttered, "but,
+Jerusalem!  She won't stay a week, an' my old woman'll have the washin' an'
+mendin' all the same."
+
+He could scarcely believe his ears and eyes when he heard the farmer say,
+"Alida, you must let me lift you out," and then saw the "town gal" set gently
+on the ground, her hand placed on Holcroft's arm as she was supported slowly
+and carefully to the rocking chair beside the fire. "Jonathan," was the quiet
+announcement, "this is Mrs. Holcroft, my wife."
+
+"Jeru--beg a pardon.  Wasn't 'spectin; jis' sich a turn o' things.  Respects,
+missus!  Sorry to see yer enj'yin' poor health."
+
+"Yes, Jonathan, Mrs. Holcroft has been sick, but she's much better and will
+soon be well.  She's very tired now from the long drive, but quiet life and
+country air will soon make her strong.  I'll just step out and care for the
+horses, Alida, and soon be back again.  You come and help me, Jonathan, and
+keep your dog off, too."
+
+The old man complied with rather poor grace for he would have preferred to
+interview the bride, at whom he was staring with all his weak, watery eyes. 
+Holcroft understood his neighbor's peculiarities too well to subject his wife
+to this ordeal, and was bent on dispatching Jonathan homeward as soon as
+possible.
+
+"I say, Jim," said the old guardsman, who felt that he was speaking to the boy
+he had known for thirty odd years, "where on airth did you pick up sich a
+sickly lookin' critter?"
+
+"I didn't pick her up," replied the farmer laughingly. "I married her fair and
+square just as you did your wife a hundred years ago, more or less.  Haven't I
+as good a right to get married as you had?"
+
+"Oh, I aint a-disputin' yer right, but it seems so kind o' suddint that it's
+taken what little breath I've left."
+
+"How do you know it's sudden?  Did you go around telling everyone how you were
+getting on when you were a-courting?"
+
+"Well, I swan!  Yer got me.  'Taint so long ago that I disremember we did it
+on the sly."
+
+"Well, now, Uncle Jonathan, you've got nothing to say against me for I didn't
+marry on the sly, although I've gone on the principle that my business wasn't
+everybody's business.  When I saw your wife about my washing and mending I
+didn't know I was going to be lucky so soon.  You know you can't marry a woman
+in this country till she's willing.  But tell your wife she shan't lose
+anything, and the next time I go to town I'll leave that settin' of eggs she
+wanted.  Now, Jonathan, honor bright, do you feel able to walk home if I give
+you fifty cents extra?"
+
+"Why, sartinly!  S'pose I'd take yer away on sich a 'casion?  My wife wouldn't
+let me in if she knowed it."
+
+"Well, you and your wife are good neighbors, and that's more'n I can say for
+most people in these parts.  Here's the money.  Mrs. Holcroft isn't strong or
+well enough to talk any tonight.  You got yourself a good supper, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes, yes!  Helped myself bount'fully.  Good night, and good luck ter yer.  I
+can't help thinkin' it was kind o' suddint though, and then she's sich a
+sickly lookin' critter.  Hope yer haven't been taken in, but then, as you say,
+the marryin' business, like other kinds o' business, is a man's own business."
+
+"I hope everyone will take your sensible view, Uncle Jonathan.  Good night."
+
+
+Chapter XXI. At Home
+
+Alida was not so cold, weary, and almost faint but that she looked around the
+old kitchen with the strongest interest.  This interest was as unlike Mrs.
+Mumpson's curiosity as she was unlike the widow.  It is true the thought of
+self was prominent, yet hers were not selfish thoughts.  There are some
+blessed natures in the world that in doing the best for themselves do the best
+that is possible for others.
+
+The genial warmth of the fire was grateful to her chilled and enfeebled frame;
+the homely kitchen, with its dresser of china ware, its tin closet and pantry,
+the doors of which old Jonathan had left open, manlike, after helping himself
+"bount'fully," all suggested more comfort to this pallid bride, sitting there
+alone, than wealth of ornament in elegant apartments has brought to many
+others.  She saw her chief domain, not in its coarse and common aspect, but as
+her vantage ground, from which she could minister to the comforts of the one
+who had rescued her.  Few brides would care to enter the kitchen first, but
+she was pleased; she who had scarcely hoped to smile again looked smilingly
+around on the quaint, homelike room.
+
+"And this is to be my home!" she murmured. "How strange, unexpected, yet
+natural it all is!  Just what he led me to expect.  The little lonely
+farmhouse, where I can be safe from staring eyes and unwounded by cruel
+questionings.  Yet that old man had a dozen questions on his tongue.  I
+believe HE took him away to save my feelings.  It's strange that so plain and
+simple a man in most respects can be so considerate.  Oh, pray God that all
+goes on as it promises!  I couldn't have dreamt it this morning, but I have an
+odd, homelike feeling already.  Well, since I AM at home I may as well take
+off my hat and cloak."
+
+And she did so.  Holcroft entered and said heartily, "That's right, Alida! 
+You are here to stay, you know.  You mustn't think it amiss that I left you a
+few moments alone for I had to get that talkative old man off home.  He's
+getting a little childish and would fire questions at you point-blank."
+
+"But shouldn't you have taken him home in the wagon?  I don't mind being
+alone."
+
+"Oh, no!  He's spry enough to walk twice the distance and often does.  It's
+light as day outside, and I made it right with him.  You can leave your things
+upstairs in your room, and I'll carry up your bundles also if you are rested
+enough for the journey."
+
+"Oh, yes!" she replied, "I'm feeling better already."
+
+He led the way to the apartment that Mrs. Mumpson had occupied and said
+regretfully, "I'm sorry the room looks so bare and comfortless, but that will
+all be mended in time.  When you come down, we'll have some coffee and
+supper."
+
+She soon reappeared in the kitchen, and he continued, "Now I'll show you that
+I'm not such a very helpless sort of man, after all; so if you're sick you
+needn't worry.  I'm going to get you a good cup of coffee and broil you a
+piece of steak."
+
+"Oh!  Please let me--" she began.
+
+"No, can't allow you to do anything tonight but sit in that chair.  You
+promised to mind, you know," and he smiled so genially that she smiled back at
+him although tears came into her eyes.
+
+"I can't realize it all," she said in a low voice. "To think how this day
+began and how it is ending!"
+
+"It's ending in a poor man's kitchen, Alida.  It was rather rough to bring you
+in here first, but the parlor is cold and comfortless.
+
+"I would rather be brought here.  It seems to me that it must be a light and
+cheerful room."
+
+"Yes, the sun shines in these east windows, and there's another window facing
+the south, so it's light all day long."
+
+She watched him curiously and with not a little self-reproach as he deftly
+prepared supper. "It's too bad for me to sit idle while you do such things,
+yet you do everything so well that I fear I shall seem awkward.  Still, I
+think I do at least know how to cook a little."
+
+"If you knew what I've had to put up with for a year or more, you wouldn't
+worry about satisfying me in this respect.  Except when old Mrs. Wiggins was
+here, I had few decent meals that I didn't get myself," and then, to cheer her
+up, he laughingly told her of Mrs. Mumpson's essay at making coffee.  He had a
+certain dry humor, and his unwonted effort at mimicry was so droll in itself
+that Alida was startled to hear her own voice in laughter, and she looked
+almost frightened, so deeply had she been impressed that it would never be
+possible or even right for her to laugh again.
+
+The farmer was secretly much pleased at his success.  If she would laugh, be
+cheerful and not brood, he felt sure she would get well and be more contented. 
+The desperate view she had taken of her misfortunes troubled him, and he had
+thought it possible that she might sink into despondency and something like
+invalidism; but that involuntary bubble of laughter reassured him. "Quiet,
+wholesome, cheerful life will restore her to health," he thought, as he put
+his favorite beverage and the sputtering steak on the table. "Now," he said,
+placing a chair at the table, "you can pour me a cup of coffee."
+
+"I'm glad I can do something," she answered, "for I can't get over the
+strangeness of being so waited on.  Indeed, everything that was unexpected or
+undreamt of has happened," and there was just the faintest bit of color on her
+cheeks as she sat down opposite him.
+
+Few men are insensible to simple, natural, womanly grace, and poor Holcroft,
+who so long had been compelled to see at his table "perfect terrors," as he
+called them, was agreeably impressed by the contrast she made with the Mumpson
+and Malony species.  Alida unconsciously had a subtle charm of carriage and
+action, learned in her long past and happy girlhood when all her associations
+were good and refined.  Still, in its truest explanation, this grace is native
+and not acquired; it is a personal trait.  Incapable of nice analysis or fine
+definitions, he only thought, "How much pleasanter it is to see at the table a
+quiet, sensible woman instead of a 'peculiar female!'" and it was not long
+before he supplemented her remark by saying, "Perhaps things are turning out
+for both of us better than we expected.  I had made up my mind this morning to
+live here like a hermit, get my own meals, and all that.  I actually had the
+rough draught of an auction bill in my pocket,--yes, here it is now,--and was
+going to sell my cows, give up my dairy, and try to make my living in a way
+that wouldn't require any woman help.  That's what took me up to Tom
+Watterly's; I wanted him to help me put the bill in shape.  He wouldn't look
+at it, and talked me right out of trying to live like Robinson Crusoe, as he
+expressed it.  I had been quite cheerful over my prospects; indeed, I was
+almost happy in being alone again after having such terrors in the house. 
+But, as I said, Watterly talked all the courage and hope right out of me, and
+made it clear that I couldn't go it alone.  You see, Tom and I have been
+friends since we were boys together, and that's the reason he talks so plain
+to me."
+
+"He has a good, kind heart," said Alida. "I don't think I could have kept up
+at all had it not been for his kindness."
+
+"Yes, Tom's a rough diamond.  He don't make any pretenses, and looks upon
+himself as a rather hard case, but I fancy he's doing kind things in his rough
+way half the time.  Well, as we were talking, he remembered you, and he spoke
+of you so feelingly and told your story with so much honest sympathy that he
+awoke my sympathy.  Now you know how it has all come about.  You see it's all
+natural enough and simple enough, and probably it's the best thing that could
+have happened for us both.  All you have to do is to get strong and well, and
+then it won't be any one-sided affair, as you've been too much inclined to
+think.  I can go on and keep my farm and home just as my heart is bent on
+doing.  I want you to understand everything for then your mind will be more
+satisfied and at rest, and that's half the battle in getting over sickness and
+trouble like yours."
+
+"I can only thank God and you for the great change in my prospects.  This
+quiet and escape from strangers are just what I most craved, and I am already
+beginning to hope that if I can learn to do all you wish, I shall find a
+content that I never hoped for," and the tears that stood in her eyes were
+witnesses of her sincerity.
+
+"Well, don't expect to learn everything at once.  Let me have my way for a
+while, and then you'll find, as you get strong, and the busy season comes on,
+that I'll be so taken up with the farm that you'll have your own way.  Won't
+you have some more steak?  No?  Well, you've enjoyed your supper a little,
+haven't you?"
+
+"Yes," she replied, smiling. "I actually felt hungry when I sat down, and the
+coffee has taken away the tired, faint feeling."
+
+"I hope you'll soon be good and hungry three times a day," he said, laughing
+pleasantly.
+
+"You'll at least let me clear the table?" she asked. "I feel so much better."
+
+"Yes, if you are sure you're strong enough.  It may make you feel more at
+home.  But drop everything till tomorrow when tired.  I must go out and do my
+night work, and it's night work now, sure enough--"
+
+"It's too bad!" she said sympathetically.
+
+"What!  To go out and feed my stock this clear, bright night?  And after a
+hearty supper too?  Such farming is fun.  I feel, too, as if I wanted to go
+and pat the cows all around in my gladness that I'm not going to sell them. 
+Now remember, let everything go till morning as soon as you feel tired."
+
+She nodded smilingly and set to work.  Standing in the shadow of a hemlock, he
+watched her for a few moments.  Her movements were slow, as would be natural
+to one who had been so reduced by illness, but this every evidence of
+feebleness touched his feelings. "She is eager to begin--too eager.  No
+nonsense there about 'menial tasks.'  Well, it does give one hope to see such
+a woman as that in the old kitchen," and then the hungry cattle welcomed him.
+
+The traveler feels safe after the fierce Arab of the desert has broken bread
+with him.  It would seem that a deep principle of human nature is involved in
+this act.  More than the restoring power of the nourishment itself was the
+moral effect for Alida of that first meal in her husband's home.  It was
+another step in what he had said was essential--the forming of his
+acquaintance.  She had seen from the first that he was plain and
+unpolished--that he had not the veneer of gentility of the man she had so
+mistakenly married; yet, in his simple truth, he was inspiring a respect which
+she had never felt for any man before. "What element of real courtesy has been
+wanting?" she asked herself. "If this is an earnest of the future, thank God
+for the real.  I've found to my cost what a clever imitation of a man means."
+
+It was as sweet as it was strange to think that she, who had trembled at the
+necessity of becoming almost a slave to unfeeling strangers, had been
+compelled to rest while a husband performed tasks naturally hers.  It was all
+very homely, yet the significance of the act was chivalrous consideration for
+her weakness; the place, the nature of the ministry could not degrade the
+meaning of his action.  Then, too, during the meal he had spoken natural,
+kindly words which gave to their breaking of bread together the true
+interpretation.  Although so feeble and wary, she found a deep satisfaction in
+beginning her household work. "It does make me feel more at home," she said. 
+"Strange that he should have thought of it!"
+
+She had finished her task and sat down again when he entered with a pail of
+milk.  Taking a dipper with a strainer on one side of it, he poured out a
+tumblerful. "Now, take this," he said, "I've always heard that milk fresh from
+the cow was very strengthening. Then go and sleep till you are thoroughly
+rested, and don't think of coming down in the morning till you feel like it. 
+I'll make the fire and get breakfast.  You have seen how easily I can do it. 
+I have several more cows to milk, and so will say 'Goodnight.'"
+
+For the first time since chaos had come into her life Alida slept soundly and
+refreshingly, unpursued by the fears which had haunted even her dreams.  When
+she awoke she expected to see the gray locks and repulsive features of the
+woman who had occupied the apartment with her at the almshouse, but she was
+alone in a small, strange room.  Then memory gathered up the threads of the
+past; but so strange, so blessed did the truth seem that she hastened to dress
+and go down to the old kitchen and assure herself that her mind had not become
+shattered by her troubles and was mocking her with unreal fancies.  The scene
+she looked upon would have soothed and reassured her even had her mind been as
+disordered as she, for the moment, had been tempted to believe.  There was the
+same homely room which had pictured itself so deeply in her memory the evening
+before.  Now it was more attractive for the morning sun was shining into it,
+lighting up its homely details with a wholesome, cheerful reality which made
+it difficult to believe that there were tragic experiences in the world.  The
+wood fire in the stove crackled merrily, and the lid of the kettle was already
+bobbing up and down from internal commotion.
+
+As she opened the door a burst of song entered, securing her attention.  She
+had heard the birds before without recognizing consciousness, as is so often
+true of our own condition in regard to the familiar sounds of nature.  It was
+now almost as if she had received another sense, so strong, sweet, and
+cheering was the symphony.  Robins, song-sparrows, blackbirds, seemed to have
+gathered in the trees nearby, to give her a jubilant welcome; but she soon
+found that the music shaded off to distant, dreamlike notes, and remembered
+that it was a morning chorus of a hemisphere.  This universality did not
+render the melody less personally grateful.  We can appreciate all that is
+lovely in Nature, yet leave all for others.  As she stood listening, and
+inhaling the soft air, full of the delicious perfume of the grass and
+expanding buds, and looking through the misty sunshine on the half-veiled
+landscape, she heard Holcroft's voice, chiding some unruly animal in the
+barnyard.
+
+This recalled her, and with the elasticity of returning health and hope she
+set about getting breakfast.
+
+"It seems to me that I never heard birds sing before," she thought, "and their
+songs this morning are almost like the music of heaven.  They seem as happy
+and unconscious of fear and trouble as if they were angels.  Mother and I used
+to talk about the Garden of Eden, but could the air have been sweeter, or the
+sunshine more tempered to just the right degree of warmth and brightness than
+here about my home?  Oh, thank God again, again and forever, for a home like
+this!" and for a few moments something of the ecstasy of one delivered from
+the black thraldom of evil filled her soul.  She paused now and then to listen
+to the birds for only their songs seemed capable of expressing her emotion. 
+It was but another proof that heavenly thoughts and homely work may go on
+together.
+
+
+Chapter XXII. Getting Acquainted
+
+It was still early, and Holcroft was under the impression that Alida would
+sleep late after the severe fatigues of the preceding day.  He therefore
+continued his work at the barn sufficiently long to give his wife time for her
+little surprise.  She was not long in finding and laying her hands on the
+simple materials for breakfast.  A ham hung in the pantry and beneath it was a
+great basket of eggs, while the flour barrel stood in the corner.  Biscuits
+were soon in the oven, eggs conjured into an omelet, and the ham cut into
+delicate slices, instead of great coarse steaks.
+
+Remembering Mrs. Mumpson's failure with the coffee, she made it a trifle
+strong and boiled the milk that should temper without cooling it.  The
+biscuits rose like her own spirits, the omelet speedily began to take on color
+like her own flushed face as she busied herself about the stove.
+
+Everything was nearly ready when she saw Holcroft coming toward the house with
+two pails of milk.  He took them to the large dairy room under the parlor and
+then came briskly to the kitchen.
+
+She stood, screened by the door as he entered, then stopped and stared at the
+table all set and at the inviting breakfast on the stove.
+
+Seeing Alida's half-smiling, half-questioning face, seeking his approval, he
+exclaimed, "Well, you HAVE stolen a march on me!  I supposed you were asleep
+yet."
+
+"I felt so much stronger and better when I awoke that I thought you wouldn't
+mind if I came down and made a beginning."
+
+"You call this a beginning do you?  Such a breakfast as this before seven in
+the morning?  I hope you haven't overtaxed yourself."
+
+"No, only a little of just the right kind of tired feeling."
+
+"Haven't you left anything for me to do?"
+
+"Perhaps.  You will know when I've put all on the table.  What I've prepared
+is ready."
+
+"Well, this is famous.  I'll go and wash and fix up a little and be right
+down."
+
+When Holcroft returned, he looked at her curiously, for he felt that he, too,
+was getting acquainted.  Her thin face was made more youthful by color; a
+pleased look was in her blue eyes, and a certain neatness and trimness about
+her dress to which he had not been accustomed.  He scanned the table
+wonderingly, for things were not put upon it at haphazard; the light biscuits
+turned their brown cheeks invitingly toward him,--she had arranged that they
+should do that,--the ham was crisp, not sodden, and the omelet as russet as a
+November leaf. "This is a new dish," he said, looking at it closely. "What do
+you call it?"
+
+"Omelet.  Perhaps you won't like it, but mother used to be very fond of it."
+
+"No matter.  We'll have it if you like it and it brings you pleasant thoughts
+of your mother."  Then he took a good sip of coffee and set the cup down again
+as he had before under the Mumpson regime, but with a very different
+expression.  She looked anxiously at him, but was quickly reassured. "I
+thought I knew how to make coffee, but I find I don't.  I never tasted
+anything so good as that.  How DO you make it?"
+
+"Just as mother taught me."
+
+"Well, well!  And you call this making a beginning?  I just wish I could give
+Tom Watterly a cup of this coffee.  It would set his mind at rest.  'By
+jocks!' he would say, 'isn't this better than going it alone?'"
+
+She looked positively happy under this sweet incense to a housewifely heart. 
+She was being paid in the coin that women love best, and it was all the more
+precious to her because she had never expected to receive it again.
+
+He did like the omelet; he liked everything, and, after helping her liberally,
+cleared the table, then said he felt equal to doing two men's work.  Before
+going out to his work, he lighted a fire on the parlor hearth and left a good
+supply of fuel beside it. "Now, Alida," he remarked humorously, "I've already
+found out that you have one fault that you and I will have to watch against. 
+You are too willing.  I fear you've gone beyond your strength this morning.  I
+don't want you to do a thing today except to get the meals, and remember, I
+can help in this if you don't feel well.  There is a fire in the parlor, and
+I've wheeled the lounge up by it.  Take it quietly today, and perhaps tomorrow
+I can begin to show you about butter-making."
+
+"I will do as you wish," she replied, "but please show me a little more where
+things are before you go out."
+
+This he did and added, "You'll find the beef and some other things on a
+swing-shelf in the cellar.  The potato bins are down there, too.  But don't
+try to get up much dinner.  What comes quickest and easiest will suit me.  I'm
+a little backward with my work and must plow all day for oats.  It's time they
+were in.  After such a breakfast, I feel as if I had eaten a bushel myself."
+
+A few moments later she saw him going up the lane, that continued on past the
+house, with his stout team and the plow, and she smiled as she heard him
+whistling "Coronation" with levity, as some good people would have thought.
+
+Plowing and planting time had come and under happier auspices, apparently,
+than he had ever imagined possible again.  With the lines about his neck, he
+began with a sidehill plow at the bottom of a large, sloping field which had
+been in corn the previous year, and the long, straight furrows increased from
+a narrow strip to a wide, oblong area. "Ah," said he in tones of strong
+satisfaction, "the ground crumbles freely; it's just in the right condition. 
+I'll quit plowing this afternoon in time to harrow and sow all the ground
+that's ready.  Then, so much'll be all done and well done.  It's curious how
+seed, if it goes into the ground at the right time and in the right way, comes
+right along and never gets discouraged.  I aint much on scientific farming,
+but I've always observed that when I sow or plant as soon as the ground is
+ready, I have better luck."
+
+The horses seemed infected by his own brisk spirit, stepping along without
+urging, and the farmer was swept speedily into the full, strong current of his
+habitual interests.
+
+One might have supposed the recent events would have the uppermost place in
+his thoughts, but this was not true.  He rather dwelt upon them as the
+unexpectedly fortunate means to the end now attained.  This was his life, and
+he was happy in the thought that his marriage promised to make this life not
+merely possible, but prosperous and full of quiet content.
+
+The calling of the born agriculturist, like that of the fisherman, has in it
+the element of chance and is therefore full of moderate yet lasting
+excitement.  Holcroft knew that, although he did his best, much would depend
+on the weather and other causes.  He had met with disappointments in his
+crops, and had also achieved what he regarded as fine successes, although they
+would have seemed meager on a Western prairie.  Every spring kindled anew his
+hopefulness and anticipation.  He watched the weather with the interested and
+careful scrutiny of a sailor, and it must be admitted that his labor and its
+results depended more on natural causes than upon his skill and the careful
+use of the fertilizers.  He was a farmer of the old school, the traditions
+received from his father controlled him in the main.  Still, his good common
+sense and long experience stood him fairly well in the place of science and
+knowledge of improved methods, and he was better equipped than the man who has
+in his brain all that the books can teach, yet is without experience.  Best of
+all, he had inherited and acquired an abiding love of the soil; he never could
+have been content except in its cultivation; he was therefore in the right
+condition to assimilate fuller knowledge and make the most of it.
+
+He knew well enough when it was about noon.  From long habit he would have
+known had the sky been overcast, but now his glance at the sun was like
+looking at a watch.  Dusty and begrimed he followed his team to the barn,
+slipped from them their headstalls and left them to amuse themselves with a
+little hay while they cooled sufficiently for heartier food. "Well now," he
+mused, "I wonder what that little woman has for dinner?  Another new dish,
+like enough.  Hanged if I'm fit to go in the house, and she looking so trim
+and neat.  I think I'll first take a souse in the brook," and he went up
+behind the house where an unfailing stream gurgled swiftly down from the
+hills.  At the nearest point a small basin had been hollowed out, and as he
+approached he saw two or three speckled trout darting away through the limpid
+water.
+
+"Aha!" he muttered, "glad you reminded me.  When SHE'S stronger, she may enjoy
+catching our supper some afternoon.  I must think of all the little things I
+can to liven her up so she won't get dull.  It's curious how interested I am
+to know how she's got along and what she has for dinner.  And to think that,
+less than a week ago, I used to hate to go near the house!"
+
+As he entered the hall on his way to his room, that he might make himself more
+presentable, an appetizing odor greeted him and Alida smiled from the kitchen
+door as she said, "Dinner's ready."
+
+Apparently she had taken him at his word, as she had prepared little else than
+an Irish stew, yet when he had partaken of it, he thought he would prefer
+Irish stews from that time onward indefinitely. "Where did you learn to cook,
+Alida?" he asked.
+
+"Mother wasn't very strong and her appetite often failed her.  Then, too, we
+hadn't much to spend on our table so we tried to make simple things taste
+nice.  Do you like my way of preparing that old-fashioned dish?"
+
+"I'm going to show you how I like it," he replied, nodding approvingly. "Well,
+what have you been doing besides tempting me to eat too much?"
+
+"What you said, resting.  You told me not to get up much of a dinner, so I
+very lazily prepared what you see.  I've been lying on the lounge most of the
+morning."
+
+"Famous, and you feel better?"
+
+"Yes, I think I shall soon get well and strong," she replied, looking at him
+gratefully.
+
+"Well, well!  My luck's turned at last.  I once thought it never would, but if
+this goes on--well, you can't know what a change it is for the better.  I can
+now put my mind on my work."
+
+"You've been plowing all the morning, haven't you?" she ventured, and there
+was the pleased look in her eyes that he already liked to see.
+
+"Yes," he replied, "and I must keep at it several days to get in all the oats
+I mean to sow.  If this weather holds, I shall be through next week."
+
+"I looked in the milk-room a while ago.  Isn't there anything I could do there
+this afternoon?"
+
+"No.  I'll attend to everything there.  It's too damp for you yet.  Keep on
+resting.  Why, bless me!  I didn't think you'd be well enough to do anything
+for a week."
+
+"Indeed," she admitted, "I'm surprised at myself.  It seems as if a crushing
+weight had been lifted off my mind and that I was coming right up.  I'm so
+glad, for I feared I might be feeble and useless a long time."
+
+"Well, Alida, if you had been, or if you ever are, don't think I'll be
+impatient.  The people I can't stand are those who try to take advantage of
+me, and I tell you I've had to contend with that disposition so long that I
+feel as if I could do almost anything for one who is simply honest and tries
+to keep her part of an agreement.  But this won't do.  I've enjoyed my own
+dinner so much that I've half forgotten that the horses haven't had theirs
+yet.  Now will you scold if I light my pipe before I go out?"
+
+"Oh, no!  I don't mind that."
+
+"No good-natured fibs!  Isn't smoke disagreeable?"
+
+She shook her head. "I don't mind it at all," she said, but her sudden
+paleness puzzled him.  He could not know that he had involuntarily recalled
+the many times that she had filled the evening pipe for a man who now haunted
+her memory like a specter.
+
+"I guess you don't like it very much," he said, as he passed out. "Well, no
+matter!  It's getting so mild that I can smoke out of doors."
+
+With the exception of the episode of dinner the day was chiefly passed by
+Alida in a health-restoring languor, the natural reaction from the distress
+and strong excitements of the past.  The rest that had been enjoined upon her
+was a blessed privilege, and still more happy was the truth that she could
+rest.  Reclining on the lounge in the parlor, with a wood fire on one side and
+the April sun on the other, both creating warmth and good cheer, she felt like
+those who have just escaped from a wreck and engulfing waves.  Her mind was
+too weary to question either the past or the future, and sometimes a
+consciousness of safety is happiness in itself.  In the afternoon, the
+crackling of the fire and the calling and singing of the birds without formed
+a soothing lullaby and she fell asleep.
+
+At last, in a dream, she heard exquisite music which appeared to grow so loud,
+strong, and triumphant that she started up and looked around bewildered.  A
+moment later, she saw that a robin was singing in a lilac bush by the window
+and that near the bird was a nest partially constructed.  She recalled her
+hopeless grief when she had last seen the building of one of their little
+homes; and she fell upon her knees with a gratitude too deep for words, and
+far more grateful to Heaven than words.
+
+Stepping out on the porch, she saw by the shadows that the sun was low in the
+west and that Holcroft was coming down the lane with his horses.  He nodded
+pleasantly as he passed on to the barn.  Her eyes followed him lingeringly
+till he disappeared, and then they ranged over the wide valley and the wooded
+hills in the distance.  Not a breath of air was stirring; the lowing of cattle
+and other rural sounds softened by distance came from other farmhouses; the
+birds were at vespers, and their songs, to her fancy, were imbued with a
+softer, sweeter melody than in the morning.  From the adjacent fields came
+clear, mellow notes that made her nerves tingle, so ethereal yet penetrating
+were they.  She was sure she had never heard such bird music before.  When
+Holcroft came in to supper she asked, "What birds are those that sing in the
+field?"
+
+"Meadow larks.  Do you like them?"
+
+"I never heard a hymn sung that did me more good."
+
+"Well, I own up, I'd rather hear 'em than much of the singing we used to have
+down at the meeting house."
+
+"It seems to me," she remarked, as she sat down at the table, "that I've never
+heard birds sing as they have today."
+
+"Now I think of it, they have been tuning up wonderfully.  Perhaps they've an
+idea of my good luck," he added smilingly.
+
+"I had thought of that about myself," she ventured. "I took a nap this
+afternoon, and a robin sang so near the window that he woke me up.  It was a
+pleasant way to be waked."
+
+"Took a nap, did you?  That's famous!  Well, well!  This day's gone just to
+suit me, and I haven't had many such in a good while, I can tell you.  I've
+got in a big strip of oats, and now, when I come in tired, here's a good
+supper.  I certainly shall have to be on the watch to do Tom Watterly good
+turns for talking me into this business.  That taking a nap was a first-rate
+idea.  You ought to keep it up for a month."
+
+"No, indeed!  There's no reason why you should work hard and I be idle.  I've
+rested today, as you wished, and I feel better than I ever expected to again;
+but tomorrow I must begin in earnest.  What use is there of your keeping your
+cows if good butter is not made?  Then I must be busy with my needle."
+
+"Yes, that's true enough.  See how thoughtless I am!  I forgot you hadn't any
+clothes to speak of.  I ought to take you to town to a dressmaker."
+
+"I think you had better get your oats in," she replied, smiling shyly.
+"Besides, I have a dressmaker that just suits me--one that's made my dresses a
+good many years."
+
+"If she don't suit you, you're hard to be suited," said he, laughing. "Well,
+some day, after you are fixed up, I shall have to let you know how dilapidated
+I am."
+
+ "Won't you do me a little favor?"
+
+"Oh, yes!  A dozen of 'em, big or little."
+
+"Please bring down this evening something that needs mending.  I am so much
+better--"
+
+"No, no!  I wasn't hinting for you to do anything tonight."
+
+"But you've promised me," she urged.  "Remember I've been resting nearly all
+day.  I'm used to sewing, and earned my living at it.  Somehow, it don't seem
+natural for me to sit with idle hands."
+
+"If I hadn't promised--"
+
+"But you have."
+
+"I suppose I'm fairly caught," and he brought down a little of the most
+pressing of the mending.
+
+"Now I'll reward you," she said, handing him his pipe, well filled. "You go in
+the parlor and have a quiet smoke.  I won't be long in clearing up the
+kitchen."
+
+"What!  Smoke in the parlor?"
+
+"Yes, why not?  I assure you I don't mind it."
+
+"Ha! Ha!  Why didn't I think of it before--I might have kept the parlor and
+smoked Mrs. Mumpson out."
+
+"It won't be smoke that will keep me out."
+
+"I should hope not, or anything else.  I must tell you how I DID have to smoke
+Mrs. Mumpson out at last," and he did so with so much drollery that she again
+yielded to irrepressible laughter.
+
+"Poor thing!  I'm sorry for her," she said.
+
+"I'm sorry for Jane--poor little stray cat of a child!  I hope we can do
+something for her some day," and having lighted his pipe, he took up the
+county paper, left weekly in a hollow tree by the stage driver, and went into
+the parlor.
+
+After freshening up the fire he sat down to read, but by the time she joined
+him the tired man was nodding.  He tried to brighten up, but his eyes were
+heavy.
+
+"You've worked hard today," she said sympathetically.
+
+"Well, I have," he answered. "I've not done such a good day's work in a year."
+
+"Then why don't you go to sleep at once?"
+
+"It don't seem polite--"
+
+"Please don't talk that way," she interrupted. "I don't mind being alone at
+all.  I shall feel a great deal more at home if you forget all about
+ceremony."
+
+"Well, Alida, I guess we had both better begin on that basis.  If I give up
+when I'm tired, you must.  You mustn't think I'm always such a sleepyhead. 
+The fact is I've been more tired out with worry of late than with work.  I can
+laugh about it now, but I've been so desperate over it that I've felt more
+like swearing.  You'll find out I've become a good deal of a heathen."
+
+"Very well; I'll wait till I find out."
+
+"I think we are getting acquainted famously, don't you?"
+
+"Yes," she nodded, with a smile that meant more than a long speech. "Good
+night."
+
+
+Chapter XXIII. Between the Past and Future
+
+Human nature, in common with Mother Nature, has its immutable laws.  The
+people who existed before the flood were, in their primal motives, like those
+of today.  The conventionality of highly civilized society does not change the
+heart, but it puts so much restraint upon it that not a few appear heartless. 
+They march through life and fight its battles like uniformed men, trained in a
+certain school of tactics.  The monotony of character and action is
+superficial, in most cases, rather than real, and he who fathoms the eyes of
+others, who catches the subtle quality of tones and interprets the flexible
+mouth that utters them, will discover that the whole gamut of human nature
+exists in those that appear only like certain musical instruments, made by
+machinery to play a few well-known tunes.  Conventional restraint often, no
+doubt, produces dwarfed and defective human nature.  I suppose that if souls
+could be put under a microscope, the undeveloped rudiments of almost
+everything would be discovered.  It is more satisfactory to study the things
+themselves than their suggestions; this we are usually better able to do among
+people of simple and untrammeled modes of life, who are not practiced in
+disguises.  Their peculiar traits and their general and dominant laws and
+impulses are exhibited with less reserve than by those who have learned to be
+always on their guard.  Of course there are commonplace yeomen as truly as
+commonplace aristocrats, and simple life abounds in simpletons.
+
+When a man in Holcroft's position has decided traits, they are apt to have a
+somewhat full expression; his rugged nature beside a tamer one outlines itself
+more vividly, just as a mountain peak is silhouetted against the horizon
+better than a rounded hill.  It probably has been observed that his character
+possessed much simplicity and directness.  He had neither the force nor the
+ambition to raise him above his circumstances; he was merely decided within
+the lines of his environment.  Perhaps the current of his life was all the
+stronger for being narrow.  His motives were neither complex nor vacillating. 
+He had married to keep his home and to continue in the conditions of life dear
+from association and the strongest preference, and his heart overflowed with
+good will and kindness toward Alida because she promised to solve the hard
+problem of the future satisfactorily.  Apart from the sympathy which her
+misfortune had evoked, he probably could have felt much the same toward any
+other good, sensible woman, had she rendered him a similar service.  It is
+true, now that Alida was in his home, that she was manifesting agreeable
+traits which gave him pleasant little surprises.  He had not expected that he
+would have had half so much to say to her, yet felt it his duty to be sociable
+in order to cheer up and mark the line between even a business marriage and
+the employment of a domestic.  Both his interest and his duty required that he
+should establish the bonds of strong friendly regard on the basis of perfect
+equality, and he would have made efforts, similar to those he put forth, in
+behalf of any woman, if she had consented to marry him with Alida's
+understanding.  Now, however, that his suddenly adopted project of securing a
+housekeeper and helper had been consummated, he would find that he was not
+dealing with a business partner in the abstract, but a definite woman, who had
+already begun to exert over him her natural influence.  He had expected more
+or less constraint and that some time must elapse before his wife would cease
+to be in a sense company whom he, with conscious and deliberate effort, must
+entertain.  On the contrary she entertained and interested him, although she
+said so little, and by some subtle power she unloosed his tongue and made it
+easy for him to talk to her.  In the most quiet and unobtrusive way, she was
+not only making herself at home, but him also; she was very subservient to his
+wishes, but not servilely so; she did not assert, but only revealed her
+superiority, and after even so brief an acquaintance he was ready to indorse
+Tom Watterly's view, "She's out of the common run."
+
+While all this was true, the farmer's heart was as untouched as that of a
+child who simply and instinctively likes a person.  He was still quietly and
+unhesitatingly loyal to his former wife.  Apart from his involuntary favor,
+his shrewd, practical reason was definite enough in its grounds of approval. 
+Reason assured him that she promised to do and to be just what he had married
+her for, but this might have been true of a capable, yet disagreeable woman
+whom he could not like, to save himself.
+
+Both in regard to himself and Alida, Holcroft accepted the actual facts with
+the gladness and much of the unquestioning simplicity of a child.  This rather
+risky experiment was turning out well, and for a time he daily became more and
+more absorbed in his farm and its interests.  Alida quietly performed her
+household tasks and proved that she would not need very much instruction to
+become a good butter maker.  The short spring of the North required that he
+should be busy early and late to keep pace with the quickly passing seedtime. 
+His hopefulness, his freedom from household worries, prompted him to sow and
+plant increased areas of land.  In brief, he entered on just the business-like
+honeymoon he had hoped for.
+
+Alida was more than content with the conditions of her life.  She saw that
+Holcroft was not only satisfied, but also pleased with her, and that was all
+she had expected and indeed all that thus far she had wished or hoped.  She
+had many sad hours; wounds like hers cannot heal readily in a true, sensitive
+woman's heart.  While she gained in cheerfulness and confidence, the terrible
+and unexpected disaster which had overtaken her rendered impossible the
+serenity of those with whom all has gone well.  Dread of something, she knew
+not what, haunted her painfully, and memory at times seemed malignantly
+perverse in recalling one whom she prayed to forget.
+
+Next to her faith and Holcroft's kindness her work was her best solace, and
+she thanked God for the strength to keep busy.
+
+On the first Sunday morning after their marriage the farmer overslept, and
+breakfast had been ready some time when he came down.  He looked with a little
+dismay at the clock over the kitchen mantel and asked, "Aren't you going to
+scold a little?"
+
+She shook her head, nor did she look the chiding which often might as well be
+spoken.
+
+"How long have I kept breakfast waiting, or you rather?"
+
+"What difference does it make?  You needed the rest.  The breakfast may not be
+so nice," was her smiling answer.
+
+"No matter.  You are nice to let a man off in that way."  Observing the book
+in her lap, he continued, "So you were reading the old family Bible to learn
+lessons of patience and forbearance?"
+
+Again she shook her head.  She often oddly reminded him of Jane in her
+employment of signs instead of speech, but in her case there was a grace, a
+suggestiveness, and even a piquancy about them which made them like a new
+language.  He understood and interpreted her frankly. "I know, Alida," he said
+kindly; "you are a good woman.  You believe in the Bible and love to read it."
+
+"I was taught to read and love it," she replied simply.  Then her eyes dropped
+and she faltered, "I've reproached myself bitterly that I rushed away so
+hastily that I forgot the Bible my mother gave me."
+
+"No, no," he said heartily, "don't reproach yourself for that.  It was the
+Bible in your heart that made you act as you did."
+
+She shot him a swift, grateful glance through her tears, but made no other
+response.
+
+Having returned the Bible to the parlor, she put the breakfast on the table
+and said quietly, "It looks as if we would have a rainy day."
+
+"Well," said he, laughing, "I'm as bad as the old woman--it seems that women
+can run farms alone if men can't.  Well, this old dame had a big farm and
+employed several men, and she was always wishing it would rain nights and
+Sundays.  I'm inclined to chuckle over the good this rain will do my oats,
+instead of being sorry to think how many sinners it'll keep from church. 
+Except in protracted-meeting times, most people of this town would a great
+deal rather risk their souls than be caught in the rain on Sunday.  We don't
+mind it much week days, but Sunday rain is very dangerous to health."
+
+"I'm afraid I'm as bad as the rest," she said, smiling. "Mother and I usually
+stayed home when it rained hard."
+
+"Oh, we don't need a hard storm in the country.  People say, 'It looks
+threatening,' and that settles it; but we often drive to town rainy days to
+save time."
+
+"Do you usually go to church at the meeting house I see off in the valley?"
+she asked.
+
+"I don't go anywhere," and he watched keenly to see how she would take this
+blunt statement of his practical heathenism.
+
+She only looked at him kindly and accepted the fact.
+
+"Why don't you pitch into me?" he asked.
+
+"That wouldn't do any good."
+
+"You'd like to go, I suppose?"
+
+"No, not under the circumstances, unless you wished to.  I'm cowardly enough
+to dread being stared at."
+
+He gave a deep sign of relief. "This thing has been troubling me," he said. "I
+feared you would want to go, and if you did, I should feel that you ought to
+go."
+
+"I fear I'm very weak about it, but I shrink so from meeting strangers.  I do
+thank God for his goodness many times a day and ask for help.  I'm not brave
+enough to do any more, yet."
+
+His rugged features became very somber as he said, "I wish I had as much
+courage as you have."
+
+"You don't understand me--" she began gently.
+
+"No, I suppose not.  It's all become a muddle to me.  I mean this church and
+religious business."
+
+She looked at him wistfully, as if she wished to say something, but did not
+venture to do so.  He promptly gave a different turn to the conversation by
+quoting Mrs. Mumpson's tirade on churchgoing the first Sunday after her
+arrival.  Alida laughed, but not in a wholly mirthful and satisfied way.
+"There!" he concluded, "I'm touching on things a little too sacred for you.  I
+respect your feelings and beliefs, for they are honest and I wish I shared in
+'em."  Then he suddenly laughed again as he added, "Mrs. Mumpson said there
+was too much milking done on Sunday, and it's time I was breaking the Fourth
+Commandment, after her notion."
+
+Alida now laughed outright, without reservation.
+
+"'By jocks!' as Watterly says, what a difference there is in women!" he
+soliloquized on his way to the barn. "Well, the church question is settled for
+the present, but if Alida should ask me to go, after her manner this morning,
+I'd face the whole creation with her."
+
+When at last he came in and threw off his waterproof coat, the kitchen was in
+order and his wife was sitting by the parlor fire with Thomson's "Land and the
+Book" in her hand.
+
+"Are you fond of reading?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, very."
+
+"Well, I am, too, sort of; but I've let the years slip by without doing half
+as much as I ought."
+
+"Light your pipe and I'll read to you, if you wish me to."
+
+"Oh, come now!  I at least believe in Sunday as a day of rest, and you need
+it.  Reading aloud is about as hard work as I can do."
+
+"But I'm used to it.  I read aloud to mother a great deal," and then there
+passed over her face an expression of deep pain.
+
+"What is it, Alida?  Don't you feel well?"
+
+"Yes, oh, yes!" she replied hastily, and her pale face became crimson.
+
+It was another stab of memory recalling the many Sundays she had read to the
+man who had deceived her. "Shall I read?" she asked.
+
+"Alida," he said very kindly, "it wasn't the thought of your mother that
+brought that look of pain into your face."
+
+She shook her head sadly, with downcast eyes.  After a moment or two, she
+raised them appealingly to him as she said simply, "There is so much that I
+wish I could forget."
+
+"Poor child!  Yes, I think I know.  Be patient with yourself, and remember
+that you were never to blame."
+
+Again came that quick, grateful glance by which some women express more than
+others can ever put in words.  Her thought was, "I didn't think that even he
+was capable of that.  What a way of assuring me that he'll be patient with
+me!"  Then she quietly read for an hour descriptions of the Holy Land that
+were not too religious for Holcroft's mind and which satisfied her conscience
+better than much she had read in former days to satisfy a taste more alien to
+hers than that of her husband.
+
+Holcroft listened to her correct pronunciation and sweet, natural tones with a
+sort of pleased wonder.  At last he said, "You must stop now."
+
+"Are you tired?" she asked.
+
+"No, but you are, or ought to be.  Why, Alida, I didn't know you were so well
+educated.  I'm quite a barbarous old fellow compared with you."
+
+"I hadn't thought of that before," she said with a laugh.
+
+"What a fool I was, then, to put it into your head!"
+
+"You must be more careful.  I'd never have such thoughts if you didn't suggest
+them."
+
+"How did you come to get such a good education?"
+
+"I wish I had a better one.  Well, I did have good advantages up to the time I
+was seventeen.  After I was old enough I went to school quite steadily, but it
+seems to me that I learned a little of everything and not much of anything. 
+When father died and we lost our property, we had to take to our needles.  I
+suppose I might have obtained work in a store, or some such place, but I
+couldn't bear to leave mother alone and I disliked being in public.  I
+certainly didn't know enough to teach, and besides, I was afraid to try."
+
+"Well, well!  You've stumbled into a quiet enough place at last."
+
+"That's what I like most about it, but I don't think I stumbled into it.  I
+think I've been led and helped.  That's what I meant when I said you didn't
+understand me," she added hesitatingly. "It doesn't take courage for me to go
+to God.  I get courage by believing that he cares for me like a father, as the
+bible says.  How could I ever have found so kind a friend and good a home
+myself?"
+
+"I've been half inclined to believe there's a Providence in it myself--more
+and more so as I get acquainted with you.  Your troubles have made you better,
+Alida; mine made me worse.  I used to be a Christian; I aint any more."
+
+She looked at him smilingly as she asked, "How do you know?"
+
+"Oh!  I know well enough," he replied gloomily. "Don't let's talk about it any
+more," and then he led her on to speak simply and naturally about her
+childhood home and her father and mother.
+
+"Well," he said heartily, "I wish your mother was living for nothing would
+please me better than to have such a good old lady in the house."
+
+She averted her face as she said huskily, "I think it was better she died
+before--" But she did not finish the sentence.
+
+By the time dinner was over the sun was shining brightly, and he asked her if
+she would not like to go up the lane to his woodland to see the view.  Her
+pleased look was sufficient answer. "But are you sure you are strong enough?"
+he persisted.
+
+"Yes, it will do me good to go out, and I may find some wild flowers."
+
+"I guess you can, a million or two."
+
+By the time he was through at the barn she was ready and they started up the
+lane, now green with late April grass and enlivened with dandelions in which
+bumblebees were wallowing.  The sun had dried the moisture sufficiently for
+them to pass on dry-shod, but everything had the fresh, vernal aspect that
+follows a warm rain.  Spring had advanced with a great bound since the day
+before.  The glazed and glutinous cherry buds had expanded with aromatic odors
+and the white of the blossoms was beginning to show.
+
+"By tomorrow," said Holcroft, "the trees will look as if covered with snow. 
+Let me help you," and he put his hand under her arm, supporting and aiding her
+steps up the steep places.
+
+Her lips were parted, the pleased look was in her eyes as they rested on trees
+and shrubs which lined the half ruinous stone walls on either side.
+"Everything seems so alive and glad this afternoon," she remarked.
+
+"Yes," replied the matter-of-fact farmer. "A rain such as we had this morning
+is like turning the water on a big mill-wheel.  It starts all the machinery
+right up.  Now the sun's out, and that's the greatest motor power of all.  Sun
+and moisture make the farm go."
+
+"Mustn't the ground be enriched, too?"
+
+"Yes, yes indeed; I suppose that's where we all fail.  But it's no easy matter
+to keep a farm in good heart.  That's another reason why I'm so glad I won't
+have to sell my stock.  A farm run without stock is sure to grow poor, and if
+the farm grows poor, the owner does as a matter of course.  But what put
+enriching the ground into your head?  Do you know anything about farming?"
+
+"No, but I want to learn.  When I was a girl, father had a garden.  He used to
+take papers about it, and I often read them aloud to him evenings.  Now I
+remember there used to be much in them about enriching the ground.  Do you
+take any such paper?"
+
+"No, I haven't much faith in book-farming."
+
+"I don't know," she ventured. "Seems to me you might get some good ideas out
+of papers, and your experience would teach you whether they were useful ideas
+or not.  If you'll take one, I'll read it to you."
+
+"I will, then, for the pleasure of hearing you read, if nothing else.  That's
+something I hadn't bargained for," he added, laughing.
+
+She answered in the same spirit by saying, "I'll throw that in and not call it
+square yet."
+
+"I think I've got the best of you," he chuckled; "and you know nothing makes a
+Yankee farmer happier than to get the best of a bargain."
+
+"I hope you'll continue to think so.  Can I sit down a few moments?"
+
+"Why, certainly!  How forgetful I am!  Your talk is too interesting for me to
+think of anything else," and he placed her on a flat rock by the side of the
+lane while he leaned against the wall.
+
+Bees and other insects were humming around them; a butterfly fluttered over
+the fence and alighted on a dandelion almost at her feet; meadow larks were
+whistling their limpid notes in the adjoining fields, while from the trees
+about the house beneath them came the songs of many birds, blending with the
+babble of the brook which ran not far away.
+
+"Oh, how beautiful, how strangely beautiful it all is!"
+
+"Yes, when you come to think of it, it is real pretty," he replied. "It's a
+pity we get so used to such things that we don't notice 'em much.  I should
+feel miserable enough, though, if I couldn't live in just such a place.  I
+shouldn't wonder if I was a good deal like that robin yonder.  I like to be
+free and enjoy the spring weather, but I suppose neither he nor I think or
+know how fine it all is."
+
+"Well, both you and the robin seem a part of it," she said, laughing.
+
+"Oh, no, no!" he replied with a guffaw which sent the robin off in alarm. "I
+aint beautiful and never was."
+
+She joined his laugh, but said with a positive little nod, "I'm right, though. 
+The robin isn't a pretty bird, yet everybody likes him."
+
+"Except in cherry time.  Then he has an appetite equal to mine.  But everybody
+don't like me.  In fact, I think I'm generally disliked in this town."
+
+"If you went among them more they wouldn't dislike you."
+
+"I don't want to go among them."
+
+"They know it, and that's the reason they dislike you."
+
+"Would you like to go out to tea-drinkings, and all that?"
+
+"No, indeed; and I don't suppose I'd be received," she added sadly.
+
+"So much the worse for them, then, blast 'em!" said Holcroft wrathfully.
+
+"Oh no!  I don't feel that way and you shouldn't.  When they can, people ought
+to be sociable and kind."
+
+"Of course I'd do any of my neighbors, except Lemuel Weeks, a good turn if it
+came in my way, but the less I have to do with them the better I'm satisfied."
+
+"I'm rested enough to go on now," said Alida quietly.
+
+They were not long in reaching the edge of the woodland, from which there was
+an extended prospect.  For some little time they looked at the wide landscape
+in silence.  Alida gave to it only partial attention for her mind was very
+busy with thoughts suggested by her husband's alienation from his neighbors. 
+It would make it easier for her, but the troubled query would arise, "Is it
+right or best for him?  His marrying me will separate him still more."
+
+Holcroft's face grew sad rather than troubled as he looked at the old meeting
+house and not at the landscape.  He was sitting near the spot where he spent
+that long forenoon a few Sundays before, and the train of thought came back
+again.  In his deep abstraction, he almost forgot the woman near him in
+memories of the past.
+
+His old love and lost faith were inseparable from that little white spire in
+the distance.
+
+Alida stole a glance at him and thought, "He's thinking of her," and she
+quietly strolled away to look for wild flowers.
+
+"Yes," muttered Holcroft, at last. "I hope Bessie knows.  She'd be the first
+one to say it was right and best for me, and she'd be glad to know that in
+securing my own home and comfort I had given a home to the homeless and
+sorrowful--a quiet, good woman, who worships God as she did."
+
+He rose and joined his wife, who held toward him a handful of trailing
+arbutus, rue anemones, bloodroot, and dicentras. "I didn't know they were so
+pretty before," he said with a smile.
+
+His smile reassured her for it seemed kinder than any she had yet received,
+and his tone was very gentle. "His dead wife will never be my enemy," she
+murmured. "He has made it right with her in his own thoughts."
+
+
+Chapter XXIV. Given Her Own Way
+
+On Monday the absorbing work of the farm was renewed, and every day brought to
+Holcroft long and exhausting hours of labor.  While he was often taciturn, he
+evidently progressed in cheerfulness and hope.  Alida confirmed his good
+impressions.  His meals were prompt and inviting; the house was taking on an
+aspect of neatness and order long absent, and his wardrobe was put in as good
+condition as its rather meager character permitted.  He had positively refused
+to permit his wife to do any washing and ironing. "We will see about it next
+fall," he said. "If then you are perfectly well and strong, perhaps, but not
+in the warm weather now coming on." Then he added, with a little nod, "I'm
+finding out how valuable you are, and I'd rather save you than the small sum I
+have to pay old Mrs. Johnson."
+
+In this and in other ways he showed kindly consideration, but his mind
+continually reverted to his work and outdoor plans with the preoccupation of
+one who finds that he can again give his thoughts to something from which they
+had been most reluctantly withdrawn.  Thus Alida was left alone most of the
+time.  When the dusk of evening came he was too tired to say much, and he
+retired early that he might be fresh for work again when the sun appeared. 
+She had no regrets, for although she kept busy she was resting and her wounds
+were healing through the long, quiet days.
+
+It was the essential calm after the storm.  Caring for the dairy and working
+the butter into firm, sweet, tempting yellow rolls were the only tasks that
+troubled her a little, but Holcroft assured her that she was learning these
+important duties faster than he had expected her to.  She had several hours a
+day in which to ply her needle, and thus was soon enabled to replenish her
+scanty wardrobe.
+
+One morning at breakfast she appeared in another gown, and although its
+material was calico, she had the appearance to Holcroft of being unusually
+well dressed.  He looked pleased, but made no comment.  When the cherry
+blossoms were fully out, an old cracked flower vase--the only one in the
+house--was filled with them, and they were placed in the center of the dinner
+table.  He looked at them and her, then smilingly remarked, "I shouldn't
+wonder if you enjoyed those cherry blows more than anything else we have for
+dinner."
+
+"I want something else, though.  My appetite almost frightens me."
+
+"That's famous!  I needn't be ashamed of mine, then."
+
+One evening, before the week was over, he saw her busy with a rake about the
+door.  Last year's leaves were still scattered about, with twigs and even
+small boughs wrested by the winds from the trees.  He was provoked with
+himself that he had neglected the usual spring clearing away of litter, and a
+little irritated that she should have tried to do the work herself.  He left
+the horses at the barn and came forward directly. "Alida," he said gravely,
+"there's no need of your doing such work; I don't like to see you do it."
+
+"Why," she replied, "I've heard that women in the country often milk and take
+care of the chickens."
+
+"Yes, but that's very different from this work.  I wouldn't like people to
+think I expected such things of you."
+
+"It's very easy work," she said smilingly, "easier than sweeping a room,
+though something like it.  I used to do it at home when I was a girl.  I think
+it does me good to do something in the open air."
+
+She was persisting, but not in a way that chafed him.  Indeed, as he looked
+into her appealing eyes and face flushed with exercise, he felt that it would
+be churlish to say another word.
+
+"Well," he said, laughing, "it makes you look so young and rosy I guess it
+does you good.  I suppose you'll have to have your own way."
+
+"You know I wouldn't do this or anything else if you really didn't want me
+to."
+
+"You are keen," he replied, with his good nature entirely restored. "You can
+see that you get me right under your thumb when you talk that way.  But we
+must both be on our guard against your fault, you know, or pretty soon you'll
+be taking the whole work of the farm off my hands."
+
+"To be serious," she resumed, accompanying him to the barn for the first time,
+"I think YOU are working too hard.  I'm not.  Our meals are so simple that it
+doesn't take me long to get them.  I'm through with the hurry in my sewing,
+the old dog does the churning, and you give me so much help in the dairy that
+I shall soon have time on my hands.  Now it seems to me that I might soon
+learn to take entire care of the chickens, big and little, and that would be
+so much less for you to look after.  I'm sure I would enjoy it very much,
+especially the looking after the little chickens."
+
+"So you really think you'd like to do that?" he asked, as he turned to her
+from unharnessing the horses.
+
+"Yes, indeed, if you think I'm competent."
+
+"You are more so than I am.  Somehow, little chickens don't thrive under a
+busy man's care.  The mother hens mean well, but they are so confoundedly
+silly.  I declare to you that last year I lost half the little chicks that
+were hatched out."
+
+"Well, then," she replied, laughing, "I won't be afraid to try, for I think I
+can beat you in raising chickens.  Now, show me how much you feed them at
+night and how much I'm to give them in the morning, and let me take the whole
+care of them for a month, get the eggs, and all.  If they don't do so well,
+then I'll resign.  I can't break you in a month."
+
+"It looks more as if you'd make me.  You have a good big bump of order, and I
+haven't any at all in little things.  Tom Watterly was right.  If I had tried
+to live here alone, things would have got into an awful mess.  I feel ashamed
+of myself that I didn't clear up the yard before, but my whole mind's been on
+the main crops."
+
+"As it should be.  Don't you worry about the little things.  They belong to
+me.  Now show me about the chickens, or they'll go to roost while we're
+talking."
+
+"But I, as well as the chickens, shall want some supper."
+
+"I won't let either of you starve.  You'll see."
+
+"Well, you see this little measure?  You fill it from this bin with this
+mixture of corn and wheat screenings.  That's the allowance, morning and
+evening.  Then you go out to the barnyard there, and call 'kip, kip, kip.' 
+That's the way my wife used--" He stopped in a little embarrassment.
+
+"I'd be glad if I could do everything as she did," said Alida gently. "It has
+grown clearer every day how hard her loss was to you.  If you'll tell me what
+she did and how she did things--" and she hesitated.
+
+"That's good of you, Alida," he replied gratefully.  Then, with his directness
+of speech, he added, "I believe some women are inclined to be jealous even of
+the dead."
+
+"You need never fear to speak of your wife to me.  I respect and honor your
+feelings--the way you remember her.  There's no reason why it should be
+otherwise.  I did not agree to one thing and expect another," and she looked
+him straight in the eyes.
+
+He dropped them, as he stood leaning against the bin in the shadowy old barn,
+and said, "I didn't think you or anyone would be so sensible.  Of course, one
+can't forget quickly--"
+
+"You oughtn't to forget," was the firm reply. "Why should you?  I should be
+sorry to think you could forget."
+
+"I fear I'm not like to make you sorry," he replied, sighing. "To tell you the
+truth--" he added, looking at her almost commiseratingly, and then he
+hesitated.
+
+"Well, the truth is usually best," she said quietly.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you my thought.  We married in haste, we were almost
+strangers, and your mind was so distracted at the time that I couldn't blame
+you if you forgot what--what I said.  I feared--well, you are carrying out our
+agreement so sensibly that I want to thank you.  It's a relief to find that
+you're not opposed, even in your heart, that I should remember one that I knew
+as a little child and married when I was young."
+
+"I remember all you said and what I said," she replied, with the same direct,
+honest gaze. "Don't let such thoughts trouble you any more.  You've been
+kinder and more considerate than I ever expected.  You have only to tell me
+how she did--"
+
+"No, Alida," he said quietly, obeying a subtle impulse. "I'd rather you would
+do everything your own way--as it's natural for you.  There, we've talked so
+long that it's too late to feed the chickens tonight.  You can begin in the
+morning."
+
+"Oh!" she cried, "and you have all your other work to do.  I've hindered
+rather than helped you by coming out."
+
+"No," he replied decidedly, "you've helped me.  I'll be in before very long."
+
+She returned to the house and busied herself in preparations for supper.  She
+was very thoughtful, and at last concluded: "Yes, he is right.  I understand. 
+Although I may do WHAT his wife did, he don't wish me to do it AS she did. 
+There could only be a partial and painful resemblance to his eyes.  Both he
+and I would suffer in comparisons, and he be continually reminded of his loss. 
+She was his wife in reality, and all relating to her is something sacred and
+past to him.  The less I am like her, the better.  He married me for the sake
+of his farm, and I can best satisfy him by carrying out his purpose in my own
+way.  He's through with sentiment and has taken the kindest way he could to
+tell me that I've nothing to do with his past.  He feared, yes, he FEARED, I
+should forget our businesslike agreement!  I didn't know I had given him cause
+to fear; I certainly won't hereafter!" and the wife felt, with a trace of
+bitterness and shame, that she had been put on her guard; that her husband had
+wished to remind her that she must not forget his motive in marrying her, or
+expect anything not in consonance with that motive.  Perhaps she had been too
+wifelike in her manner, and therefore he had feared.  She was as sensitive to
+such a reproach as she would have been in her girlhood.
+
+For once her intuition was at fault, and she misjudged Holcroft in some
+respects.  He did think he was through with sentiment; he could not have
+talked deliberately to Alida or to any other about his old life and love, and
+he truly felt that she had no part in that life.  It had become a sad and
+sacred memory, yet he wished to feel that he had the right to dwell upon it as
+he chose.  In his downright sincerity he wished her to know that he could not
+help dwelling on it; that for him some things were over, and that he was not
+to blame.  He was profoundly grateful to her that she had so clearly accepted
+the facts of his past, and of their own present relations.  He HAD feared, it
+is true, but she had not realized his fears, and he felt that it was her due
+that he should acknowledge her straightforward carrying out of the compact
+made under circumstances which might well excuse her from realizing everything
+fully.
+
+Moreover, direct and matter of fact as he was, he had felt vaguely the
+inevitable difficulties of their relationship.  The very word "wife" might
+suggest to her mind an affection which he believed it was not in his power to
+bestow.  They had agreed to give an arbitrary and unusual meaning to their
+marriage, and, while thinking it could have no other meaning for him, his mind
+was haunted, and he feared that hers might be, by the natural significance of
+the rite.  So far from meaning to hint that she had been too wifelike, he had
+meant to acknowledge her simple and natural fulfillment of his wishes in a
+position far more difficult to fill than even he imagined.  That she succeeded
+so well was due to the fact that she entertained for him all the kind feelings
+possible except the one supreme regard which, under ordinary circumstances,
+would have accounted for the marriage.  The reason that all promised to go so
+well in their relationship of mere mutual help was the truth that this basis
+of union had satisfied their mutual need.  As the farmer had hoped, they had
+become excellent friends, supplementing each other's work in a way that
+promised prosperity.
+
+Without the least intention on the part of either, chance words had been
+spoken which would not be without effect.  He had told her to do everything in
+her own way because the moment he thought of it he knew he liked her ways. 
+They possessed a novelty and natural grace which interested him.  There are
+both a natural and a conventional grace, and the true lady learns to blend the
+one with the other so as to make a charming manner essentially her own--a
+manner which makes a woman a lady the world over.  Alida had little more than
+natural grace and refinement, unmodified by society.  This the plain farmer
+could understand, and he was already awakening to an appreciation of it.  It
+impressed him agreeably that Alida should be trim and neat while about her
+work, and that all her actions were entirely free from the coarse, slovenly
+manner, the limp carriage, and slatternly aspect of the whole tribe which had
+come and gone during the past year.  They had all been so much alike in
+possessing disagreeable traits that he felt that Alida was the only peculiar
+one among them.  He never thought of instituting comparisons between her and
+his former wife, yet he did so unconsciously.  Mrs. Holcroft had been too much
+like himself, matter of fact, materialistic, kind, and good.  Devoid of
+imagination, uneducated in mind, her thoughts had not ranged far from what she
+touched and saw.  She touched them with something of their own heaviness, she
+saw them as objects--just what they were--and was incapable of obtaining from
+them much suggestion or enjoyment.  She knew when the cherry and plum trees
+were in blossom just as she knew it was April.  The beautiful sounds and
+changes in nature reminded her that it was time to do certain kinds of work,
+and with her, work was alpha and omega.  As her mother had before her, she was
+inclined to be a house drudge rather than a housewife.  Thrift, neatness,
+order, marked the limits of her endeavor, and she accomplished her tasks with
+the awkward, brisk directness learned in her mother's kitchen.  Only mind,
+imagination, and refinement can embroider the homely details of life.  Alida
+would learn to do all that she had done, but the woman with a finer nature
+would do it in a different way.  Holcroft already knew he liked this way
+although he could not define it to himself.  Tired as he was when he came home
+in the evening, his eyes would often kindle with pleasure at some action or
+remark that interested him from its novelty.  In spite of his weariness and
+preoccupation, , in spite of a still greater obstacle--the inertia of a mind
+dulled by material life--he had begun to consider Alida's personality for its
+own sake.  He liked to watch her, not to see what she did to his advantage,
+but how she did it.  She was awakening an agreeable expectancy, and he
+sometimes smilingly said to himself, "What's next?"
+
+"Oh, no!" he thought as he was milking the last cow, "I'd much rather she'd
+take her own natural way in doing things.  It would be easier for her and it's
+her right and--and somehow I like her way just as I used to like Bessie's
+ways.  She isn't Bessie and never can be, and for some reason I'd like her to
+be as different as possible."
+
+Unconsciously and unintentionally, however, he had given Alida's sensitive
+nature a slight wound.  She felt that she had been told in effect, "You can
+help me all you please, and I would rather you would do this in a way that
+will not awaken associations, but you must not think of me or expect me to
+think of you in any light that was not agreed upon."  That he had feared the
+possibility of this, that he might have fancied he saw indications of this,
+hurt her pride--that pride and delicacy of feeling which most women shield so
+instinctively.  She was now consciously on her guard, and so was not so secure
+against the thoughts she deprecated as before.  In spite of herself, a
+restraint would tinge her manner which he would eventually feel in a vague,
+uncomfortable way.
+
+But he came in at last, very tired and thoroughly good-natured. "I'm going to
+town tomorrow," he said, "and I thought of taking a very early start so as to
+save time.  Would you like to go?"
+
+"There's no need of my going."
+
+"I thought perhaps you'd enjoy the drive."
+
+"I would have to meet strangers and I'm so entirely content in being alone--I
+won't go this time unless you wish it."
+
+"Well, if you don't care about it, I'll carry out my first plan and take a
+very early start.  I want to sell the butter and eggs on hand, repay Tom
+Watterly, and get some seeds.  We need some things from the store, too, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Yes, you are such a coffee drinker--" she began, smiling.
+
+"Oh, I know!" he interrupted. "Make out your list.  You shall say what we
+want.  Isn't there something you want for yourself?"
+
+"No, not for myself, but I do want something that perhaps you would enjoy,
+too.  You may think it a waste of money, though."
+
+"Well, you've a right to waste some in your way as well as I have over my
+pipe."
+
+"That's good.  I hadn't thought of that.  You are the one that puts notions
+into my head.  I would like three or four geraniums and a few flower seeds."
+
+He looked as if he was thinking deeply and she felt a little hurt that he
+should not comply at once with her request, knowing that the outlay suggested
+was very slight.
+
+At last he looked up, smiling as he said, "So I put notions into your head, do
+I?"
+
+"Oh, well," she replied, flushing in the consciousness of her thoughts, "if
+you think it's foolish to spend money for such things--"
+
+"Tush, tush, Alida!  Of course I'll get what you wish.  But I really am going
+to put a notion into your head, and it's stupid and scarcely fair in me that I
+hadn't thought of some such plan before.  You want to take care of the
+chickens.  Well, I put them wholly in your care and you shall have all you can
+make off them--eggs, young chickens, and everything."
+
+"That IS a new notion," she replied, laughing. "I hadn't thought of such a
+thing and it's more than fair.  What would I do with so much money?"
+
+"What you please.  Buy yourself silk dresses if you want to."
+
+"But I couldn't use a quarter of the money."
+
+"No matter, use what you like and I'll put the rest in the bank for you and in
+your name.  I was a nice kind of a business partner, wasn't I?  Expecting you
+to do nearly half the work and then have you say, 'Will you please get me a
+few plants and seeds?' and then, 'Oh! If you think it's foolish to spend money
+for such things.'  Why, you have as good a right to spend some of the money
+you help earn as I have.  You've shown you'll be sensible in spending it.  I
+don't believe you'll use enough of it.  Anyway, it will be yours, as it ought
+to be."
+
+"Very well," she replied, nodding at him with piquant significance, "I'll
+always have some to lend you."
+
+"Yes, shouldn't wonder if you were the richest some day.  Everything you touch
+seems to turn out well.  I shall be wholly dependent on you hereafter for eggs
+and an occasional fricassee."
+
+"You shall have your share.  Yes, I like this notion.  It grows on me.  I'd
+like to earn some money to do what I please with.  You'll be surprised to see
+what strange and extravagant tastes I'll develop!"
+
+"I expect to be perfectly dumfoundered, as Mrs. Mumpson used to say.  Since
+you are so willing to lend, I'll lend you enough to get all you want tomorrow. 
+Make out your list.  You can get a good start tomorrow for I was too tired and
+it was too late for me to gather the eggs tonight.  I know, too, that a good
+many of the hens have stolen their nests of late, and I've been too busy to
+look for 'em.  You may find perfect mines of eggs, but, for mercy's sake!
+don't climb around in dangerous places.  I had such bad luck with chicks last
+year that I've only set a few hens.  You can set few or many now, just as you
+please."
+
+Even as he talked and leisurely finished his supper, his eyes grew heavy with
+sleep. "What time will you start tomorrow?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, no matter; long before you are up or ought to be.  I'll get myself a cup
+of coffee.  I expect to do my morning work and be back by nine or ten o'clock
+for I wish to get in some potatoes and other vegetables before Sunday."
+
+"Very well, I'll make out my list and lay it on the table here.  Now, why
+don't you go and sleep at once?  You ought, with such an early start in
+prospect."
+
+"Ought I?  Well, I never felt more inclined to do my duty.  You must own up I
+have put one good notion into your head?"
+
+"I have said nothing against any of them.  Come, you ought to go at once."
+
+"Can't I smoke my pipe first please?"
+
+"You'll find it quieter in the parlor."
+
+"But it's pleasanter here where I can watch you."
+
+"Do you think I need watching?"
+
+"Yes, a little, since you don't look after your own interests very sharply."
+
+"It isn't my way to look after anything very sharply."
+
+"No, Alida, thank the Lord!  There's nothing sharp about you, not even your
+tongue.  You won't mind being left alone a few hours tomorrow?"
+
+"No, indeed, I like to be alone."
+
+"I thought I did.  Most everyone has seemed a crowd to me.  I'm glad you've
+never given me that feeling.  Well, goodbye till you see me driving up with
+the geraniums."
+
+
+Chapter XXV. A Charivari
+
+The eastern horizon was aglow with rosy tints the following morning when
+Holcroft awoke; the stars were but just fading from the sky and the birds were
+still silent.  He knew by these signs that it was very early and that he could
+carry out his plan of a timely start to town.  Dressing very quietly, he stole
+downstairs, shoes in hand, lest his tread should awaken Alida.  The kitchen
+door leading into the hall was closed.  Lifting the latch carefully, he found
+the lamp burning, the breakfast table set, and the kettle humming over a good
+fire. "This is her work, but where is she?" he queried in much surprise.
+
+The outer door was ajar; he noiselessly crossed the room, and looking out, he
+saw her.  She had been to the well for a pail of water, but had set it down
+and was watching the swiftly brightening east.  She was so still and her face
+so white in the faint radiance that he had an odd, uncanny impression.  No
+woman that he had ever known would stop that way to look at the dawn.  He
+could see nothing so peculiar in it as to attract such fixed attention.
+"Alida," he asked, "what do you see?"
+
+She started slightly and turned to take up the pail; but he had already sprung
+down the steps and relieved her of the burden.
+
+"Could anything be more lovely than those changing tints?  It seems to me I
+could have stood there an hour," she said quietly.
+
+"You are not walking or doing all this in your sleep, are you?" he asked,
+laughing, yet regarding her curiously. "You looked as you stood there like
+what people call a--what's that big word?"
+
+"I'm not a somnambulist and never was, to my knowledge.  You'll find I'm wide
+enough awake to have a good breakfast soon."
+
+"But I didn't expect you to get up so early.  I didn't wish it."
+
+"It's too late now," she said pleasantly, "so I hope you won't find fault with
+me for doing what I wanted to do."
+
+"Did you mean to be up and have breakfast when I told you last night?"
+
+"Yes.  Of course I didn't let you know for you would have said I mustn't, and
+then I couldn't.  It isn't good for people to get up so early and do as much
+as you had on your mind without eating.  Now you won't be any the worse for
+it."
+
+"I certainly ought to be the better for so much kindly consideration; but it
+will cure me of such unearthly hours if you feel that you must conform to
+them.  You look pale this morning, Alida; you're not strong enough to do such
+things, and there's no need of it when I'm so used to waiting on myself."
+
+"I shall have to remind you," she replied with a bright look at him over her
+shoulder, "that you said I could do things my own way."
+
+"Well, it seems odd after a year when everyone who came here appeared to
+grudge doing a thing for a man's comfort."
+
+"I should hope I was different from them."
+
+"Well, you are.  I thought you were different from anyone I ever knew as I saw
+you there looking at the east.  You seem wonderfully fond of pretty things."
+
+"I'll own to that.  But if you don't hurry you won't do as much as you hoped
+by getting up early."
+
+The morning was very mild, and she left the outer door open as she went
+quickly to and fro with elasticity of spirit as well as step.  It was pleasant
+to have her efforts appreciated and almost as grateful to hear the swelling
+harmony of song from the awakening birds.  The slight cloud that had fallen on
+her thoughts the evening before had lifted.  She felt that she understood
+Holcroft better, and saw that his feeling was only that of honest friendliness
+and satisfaction.  She had merely to recognize and respond to so much only and
+all would be well.  Meantime, she desired nothing more, and he should be
+thoroughly convinced of this fact.  She grew positively light-hearted over the
+fuller assurance of the truth that although a wife, she was not expected to
+love--only to be faithful to all his interests.  This, and this only, she
+believed to be within her power.
+
+Holcroft departed in the serenity characteristic of one's mood when the
+present is so agreeable that neither memories of the past nor misgivings as to
+the future are obtrusive.  He met Watterly in town, and remarked, "This is
+another piece of good luck.  I hadn't time to go out to your place, although I
+meant to take time."
+
+"A piece of good luck indeed!" Tom mentally echoed, for he would have been
+greatly embarrassed if Holcroft had called.  Mrs. Watterly felt that she had
+been scandalized by the marriage which had taken place in her absence, and was
+all the more resentful for the reason that she had spoken to a cousin of
+uncertain age and still more uncertain temper in behalf of the farmer.  In
+Mrs. Watterly's estimate of action, it was either right, that is, in
+accordance with her views, or else it was intolerably wrong and without
+excuse.  Poor Tom had been made to feel that he had not only committed an
+almost unpardonable sin against his wife and her cousin, but also against all
+the proprieties of life. "The idea of such a wedding taking place in my rooms
+and with my husband's sanction!" she had said with concentrated bitterness. 
+Then had followed what he was accustomed to characterize as a spell of "zero
+weather."  He discreetly said nothing. "It didn't seem such a bad idea to me,"
+he thought, "but then I suppose women folks know best about such things."
+
+He was too frank in his nature to conceal from Holcroft his misgivings or his
+wife's scornful and indignant disapproval. "Sorry Angy feels so bad about it,
+Jim," he said ruefully, "but she says I mustn't buy anything more of you."
+
+"Or have anything more to do with me, I suppose?"
+
+"Oh, come now!  You know a man's got to let his women-folks have their say
+about household matters, but that don't make any difference in my feelings
+toward you."
+
+"Well, well, Tom!  If it did, I should be slow to quarrel with a man who had
+done me as good a turn as you have.  Thank the Lord!  I've got a wife that'll
+let me have some say about household and all other matters.  You, too, are
+inclined to think that I'm in an awful scrape.  I feel less like getting out
+of it every day.  My wife is as respectable as I am and a good sight better
+than I am.  If I'm no longer respectable for having married her, I certainly
+am better contented than I ever expected to be again.  I want it understood,
+though, that the man who says anything against my wife may have to get me
+arrested for assault and battery."
+
+"When it comes to that, Jim," replied Watterly, who was meek only in the
+presence of his wife, "I'd just as lief speak against her as wink if there was
+anything to say.  But I say now, as I said to you at first, she aint one of
+the common sort.  I thought well of her at first, and I think better of her
+now since she's doing so well by you.  But I suppose marrying a woman situated
+as she was isn't according to regulation.  We men are apt to act like the boys
+we used to be and go for what we want without thinking of the consequences."
+
+"It's the consequences that please me most.  If you had been dependent on
+Mumpson, Malonys, and Wigginses for your home comfort you wouldn't worry about
+the talk of people who'd never raise a finger for you.  Well, goodbye, I'm in
+a hurry.  Your heart's in the right place, Tom, and some day you'll come out
+and take dinner with me.  One dinner, such as she'll give you, will bring you
+round.  One of our steady dishes is a bunch of flowers and I enjoy 'em, too. 
+What do you think of that for a hard-headed old fellow like me?"
+
+Some men are chilled by public disapproval and waver under it, but Holcroft
+was thereby only the more strongly confirmed in his course.  Alida had won his
+esteem as well as his good will, and it was the instinct of his manhood to
+protect and champion her.  He bought twice as many flowers and seeds as she
+had asked for, and also selected two simple flower vases; then started on his
+return with the feeling that he had a home.
+
+Alida entered upon her duties to the poultry with almost the pleasure of a
+child.  She first fed them, then explored every accessible nook and hiding
+place in the barn and outbuildings.  It was evident that many of the biddies
+had stolen their nests, and some were brooding upon them with no disposition
+to be disturbed.  Out of the hundred or more fowls on the place, a good many
+were clucking their maternal instincts, and their new keeper resolved to put
+eggs under all except the flighty ones that left their nests within two or
+three days' trial.  As the result of her search, the empty egg basket was in a
+fair way to be full again very soon.  She gloated over her spoils as she
+smilingly assured herself, "I shall take him at his word.  I shall spend
+nearly all I make this year in fixing up the old house within and without, so
+he'll scarcely know it."
+
+It was eleven o'clock before Holcroft drove to the door with the flowers, and
+he was amply repaid by her pleasure in receiving them. "Why, I only expected
+geraniums," she said, "and you've bought half a dozen other kinds."
+
+"And I expected to get my own coffee this morning and a good breakfast was
+given me instead, so we are quits."
+
+"You're probably ready for your dinner now, if it is an hour earlier than
+usual.  It will be ready in ten minutes."
+
+"Famous!  That will give me a good long afternoon.  I say, Alida, when do you
+want the flower beds made?"
+
+"No hurry about them.  I shall keep the plants in the window for a week or
+two.  It isn't safe to put them outdoors before the last of May.  I'll have
+some slips ready by that time."
+
+"Yes, I know.  You'll soon have enough to set out an acre."
+
+The days of another week passed quietly and rapidly away, Alida becoming
+almost as much absorbed in her interests as he in his.  Every hour added to
+the beauty of the season without.  The unplowed fields were taking on a vivid
+green, and Holcroft said that on the following Monday the cows should go out
+to pasture.  Wholesome, agreeable occupation enabled Alida to put away sad
+thoughts and memories.  Nature and pleasant work are two potent healers, and
+she was rallying fast under their ministry.  Holcroft would have been blind
+indeed had he not observed changes for the better.  Her thin cheeks were
+becoming fuller, and her exertions, with the increasing warmth of the season,
+often flushed her face with a charming color.  The old sad and troubled
+expression was passing away from her blue eyes.  Every day it seemed easier
+for her to laugh, and her step grew more elastic.  It was all so gradual that
+he never questioned it, but his eyes followed her with increasing pleasure and
+he listened, when she spoke, with deepening interest.  Sundays had been long
+and rather dreary days, but now he positively welcomed their coming and looked
+forward to the hours when, instead of brooding over the past, he should listen
+to her pleasant voice reading his few and neglected books.  There was a new
+atmosphere in his home--a new influence, under which his mind was awakening in
+spite of his weariness and absorption in the interests of the farm.  Alida was
+always ready to talk about these, and her questions would soon enable her to
+talk understandingly.  She displayed ignorance enough, and this amused him,
+but her queries evinced no stupidity.  In reading to her father and in the
+cultivation of flowers, she had obtained hints of vital horticultural
+principles, and Holcroft said to her laughingly one evening at supper, "You'll
+soon learn all I know and begin to teach me."
+
+Her manner of deprecating such remarks was to exaggerate them and she replied,
+"Yes, next week you will sell my eggs and I shall subscribe for the
+agricultural paper my father used to take.  Then will begin all the
+improvements of book-farming.  I shall advise you to sow oats in June, plant
+corn in March, and show you generally that all your experience counts for
+nothing."
+
+This kind of badinage was new to the farmer, and it amused him immensely.  He
+did not grow sleepy so early in the evening, and as he was driving his work
+prosperously he shortened his hours of labor slightly.  She also found time to
+read the county paper and gossip a little about the news, thus making a
+beginning in putting him and herself en rapport with other interests than
+those which centered in the farm.  In brief, she had an active, intelligent
+mind and a companionable nature.  Her boundless gratitude for her home, which
+daily grew more homelike, led her to employ all her tact in adding to his
+enjoyment.  Yet so fine was her tact that her manner was a simple embodiment
+of good will, and he was made to feel that it was nothing more.
+
+While all was passing so genially and satisfactorily to Holcroft, it may well
+be supposed that his conduct was not at all to the mind of his neighbors. 
+News, especially during the busy spring season, permeates a country
+neighborhood slowly.  The fact of his marriage had soon become known, and
+eventually, through Justice Harkins, the circumstances relating to it and
+something of Alida's previous history, in a garbled form, came to be discussed
+at rural firesides.  The majority of the men laughed and shrugged their
+shoulders, implying it was none of their business, but not a few, among whom
+was Lemuel Weeks, held up their hands and spoke of the event in terms of the
+severest reprehension.  Many of the farmers' wives and their maiden sisters
+were quite as much scandalized as Mrs. Watterly had been that an unknown
+woman, of whom strange stories were told, should have been brought into the
+community from the poorhouse, "and after such a heathenish marriage, too,"
+they said.  It was irregular, unprecedented, and therefore utterly wrong and
+subversive of the morals of the town.
+
+They longed to ostracize poor Alida, yet saw no chance of doing so.  They
+could only talk, and talk they did, in a way that would have made her ears
+tingle had she heard.
+
+The young men and older boys, however, believed that they could do more than
+talk.  Timothy Weeks had said to a group of his familiars, "Let's give old
+Holcroft and his poorhouse bride a skimelton that will let 'em know what folks
+think of 'em."
+
+The scheme found favor at once, and Tim Weeks was soon recognized as organizer
+and leader of the peculiar style of serenade contemplated.  After his day's
+work was over, he rode here and there summoning congenial spirits.  The
+project soon became pretty well known in several families, but the elder
+members remained discreetly blind and deaf, proposing to wink at what was
+going on, yet take no compromising part themselves.  Lemuel Weeks winked very
+knowingly and suggestively.  He kept within such bounds, however, as would
+enable him to swear that he knew nothing and had said nothing, but his son had
+never felt more assured of his father's sympathy.  When at last the motley
+gathering rendezvoused at Tim's house, Weeks, senior, was conveniently making
+a call on a near neighbor.
+
+It was Saturday evening, and the young May moon would furnish sufficient light
+without revealing identity too clearly.  About a score of young fellows and
+hired farm-hands of the ruder sort came riding and trudging to Weeks' barn,
+where there was a barrel of cider on tap.  Here they blackened their faces
+with charcoal and stimulated their courage, for it was well known that
+Holcroft was anything but lamblike when angered.
+
+"He'll be like a bull in a china shop," remarked Tim, "but then there's enough
+of us to handle him if he gets too obstrep'rous."
+
+Armed with tin pans and horns which were to furnish the accompaniment to their
+discordant voices, they started about eight in the evening.  As they moved up
+the road there was a good deal of coarse jesting and bravado, but when they
+approached the farmhouse silence was enjoined.  After passing up the lane they
+looked rather nervously at the quiet dwelling softly outlined in the
+moonlight.  A lamp illumined the kitchen window, and Tim Weeks whispered
+excitedly, "He's there.  Let's first peek in the window and then give 'em a
+scorcher."
+
+Knowing that they should have the coming day in which to rest, Holcroft and
+Alida had busied themselves with outdoor matters until late.  She had been
+planning her flower beds, cutting out the dead wood from some neglected
+rosebushes and shrubbery, and had also helped her husband by sowing seed in
+the kitchen garden back of the house.  Then, weary, yet pleased with the labor
+accomplished, they made a very leisurely supper, talking over garden matters
+and farm prospects in general.  Alida had all her flower seeds on the table
+beside her, and she gloated over them and expatiated on the kind of blossoms
+they would produce with so much zest that Holcroft laughingly remarked, "I
+never thought that flowers would be one of the most important crops on the
+place."
+
+"You will think so some day.  I can see, from the expression of your eyes,
+that the cherry blossoms and now the apple blows which I put on the table
+please you almost as much as the fruit would."
+
+"Well, it's because I notice 'em.  I never seemed to notice 'em much before."
+
+"Oh, no!  It's more than that," she replied, shaking her head. "Some people
+would notice them, yet never see how pretty they were."
+
+"Then they'd be blind as moles."
+
+"The worst kind of blindness is that of the mind."
+
+"Well, I think many country people are as stupid and blind as oxen, and I was
+one of 'em.  I've seen more cherry and apple blossoms this year than in all my
+life before, and I haven't thought only of cherries and apples either."
+
+"The habit of seeing what is pretty grows on one," she resumed. "It seems to
+me that flowers and such things feed mind and heart. So if one HAS mind and
+heart, flowers become one of the most useful crops.  Isn't that practical
+common sense?"
+
+"Not very common in Oakville.  I'm glad you think I'm in a hopeful frame of
+mind, as they used to say down at the meeting house.  Anyhow, since you wish
+it, we will have a flower crop as well as a potato crop."
+
+Thus they continued chatting while Alida cleared up the table, and Holcroft,
+having lighted his pipe, busied himself with peeling a long, slim hickory
+sapling intended for a whipstock.
+
+Having finished her tasks, Alida was finally drying her hands on a towel that
+hung near a window.  Suddenly, she caught sight of a dark face peering in. 
+Her startled cry brought Holcroft hastily to his feet. "What's the matter?" he
+asked.
+
+"I saw--" Then she hesitated from a fear that he would rush into some unknown
+danger.
+
+The rough crew without perceived that their presence was known, and Tim Weeks
+cried, "Now, all together!"
+
+A frightful overture began at once, the hooting and yelling almost drowning
+the instrumental part and sending to Alida's heart that awful chill of fear
+produced by human voices in any mob-like assemblage.  Holcroft understood the
+affair at once, for he was familiar with the custom, but she did not.  He
+threw open the door with the purpose of sternly expostulating with the
+disturbers of the peace and of threatening them with the law unless they
+retired.  With an instinct to share his danger she stepped to his side, and
+this brought a yell of derision.  Lurid thoughts swept through her mind.  She
+had brought this danger.  Her story had become known.  What might they not do
+to Holcroft?  Under the impulse of vague terror and complete self-sacrifice,
+she stepped forward and cried, "I only am to blame.  I will go away forever if
+you will spare--" But again the scornful clamor rose and drowned her voice.
+
+Her action and words had been so swift that Holcroft could not interfere, but
+in an instant he was at her side, his arm around her, his square jaw set, and
+his eyes blazing with his kindling anger.  He was not one of those men who
+fume early under provocation and in words chiefly.  His manner and gesture
+were so impressive that his tormentors paused to listen.
+
+"I know," he said quietly, "all about this old, rude custom--that it's often
+little more than a rough lark.  Well, now that you've had it, leave at once. 
+I'm in no mood for such attention from my neighbors.  This is my wife, and
+I'll break any man's head who says a word to hurt her feelings--"
+
+"Oh yes!  Take care of her feelings, now it's your turn.  They must 'a' been
+hurt before," piped up Tim Weeks.
+
+"Good for you, old man, for showin' us your poorhouse bride," said another.
+
+"We don't fancy such grass-widders, and much married, half-married women in
+Oakville," yelled a third.
+
+"Why didn't yer jump over a broomstick for a weddin' ceremony?" someone else
+bawled.
+
+These insults were fired almost in a volley.  Alida felt Holcroft's arm grow
+rigid for a second.  "Go in, quick!" he said.
+
+Then she saw him seize the hickory sapling he had leaned against the house,
+and burst upon the group like a thunderbolt.  Cries of pain, yells, and oaths
+of rage rose above the rain of blows.  The older members of the crew sought to
+close upon him, but he sprung back, and the tough sapling swept about him like
+a circle of light.  It was a terrific weapon in the hands of a strong man, now
+possessed of almost giant strength in his rage.  More than one fellow went
+down under its stinging cut, and heads and faces were bleeding.  The younger
+portion of the crowd speedily took to their heels, and soon even the most
+stubborn fled; the farmer vigorously assisting their ignominious retreat with
+tremendous downward blows on any within reach.  Tim Weeks had managed to keep
+out of the way till they entered the lane; then, taking a small stone from the
+fence, he hurled it at their pursuer and attempted to jump over the wall. 
+This was old, and gave way under him in such a way that he fell on the other
+side.  Holcroft leaped the fence with a bound, but Tim, lying on his back,
+shrieked and held up his hands, "You won't hit a feller when he's down!"
+
+"No," said Holcroft, arresting his hickory. "I'll send you to jail, Tim Weeks. 
+That stone you fired cut my head.  Was your father in that crowd?"
+
+"No-o-o!" blubbered Tim.
+
+"If he was, I'd follow him home and whip him in his own house.  Now, clear
+out, and tell the rest of your rowdy crew that I'll shoot the first one of you
+that disturbs me again.  I'll send the constable for you, and maybe for some
+of the others."
+
+Dire was the dismay, and dreadful the groaning in Oakville that night.  Never
+before had salves and poultices been in such demand.  Not a few would be
+disfigured for weeks, and wherever Holcroft's blows had fallen welts arose
+like whipcords.  In Lemuel Weeks' dwelling the consternation reached its
+climax.  Tim, bruised from his fall, limped in and told his portentous story. 
+In his spite, he added, "I don't care, I hit him hard.  His face was all
+bloody."
+
+"All bloody!" groaned his father. "Lord 'a mercy!  He can send you to jail,
+sure enough!"
+
+Then Mrs. Weeks sat down and wailed aloud.
+
+
+Chapter XXVI. "You Don't Know."
+
+As Timothy Weeks limped hastily away, Holcroft, with a strong revulsion of
+feeling, thought of Alida.  HE had been able to answer insults in a way
+eminently satisfactory to himself, and every blow had relieved his electrical
+condition.  But how about the poor woman who had received worse blows than he
+had inflicted?  As he hastened toward the house he recalled a dim impression
+of seeing her sink down on the doorstep.  Then he remembered her effort to
+face the marauders alone. "She said she was to blame, poor child!  As if there
+were any blame at all!  She said, 'spare him,' as if I was facing a band of
+murderers instead of a lot of neighborhood scamps, and that she'd go away. 
+I'd fight all Oakville--men, women, and children--before I'd permit that," and
+he started on a run.
+
+He found Alida on the step, where she had sunk as if struck down by the rough
+epithets hurled at her.  She was sobbing violently, almost hysterically, and
+at first could not reply to his soothing words.  He lifted her up, and half
+carried her within to a chair. "Oh, oh," she cried, "why did I not realize it
+more fully before? Selfish woman that I was, to marry you and bring on you all
+this shame and danger.  I should have thought of it all, I ought to have died
+rather than do you such a wrong."
+
+"Alida, Alida," protested Holcroft, "if it were all to do over again, I'd be a
+thousand times more--"
+
+"Oh, I know, I know!  You are brave and generous and honest.  I saw that much
+when you first spoke to me.  I yielded to the temptation to secure such a
+friend.  I was too cowardly to face the world alone.  And now see what's
+happened!  You're in danger and disgrace on my account.  I must go away--I
+must do what I should have done at first," and with her face buried in her
+hands she rocked back and forth, overwhelmed by the bitterness and reproach of
+her thoughts.
+
+"Alida," he urged, "please be calm and sensible.  Let me reason with you and
+tell you the truth.  All that's happened is that the Oakville cubs have
+received a well-deserved whipping.  When you get calm, I can explain
+everything so it won't seem half so bad.  Neither you nor I are in any danger,
+and, as for your going away, look me in the eyes and listen."
+
+His words were almost stern in their earnestness.  She raised her streaming
+eyes to his face, then sprung up, exclaiming, "Oh!  You're wounded!"
+
+"What's that, compared with your talk of going away?"
+
+All explanations and reassurances would have been trivial in effect, compared
+with the truth that he had been hurt in her defense.  She dashed her tears
+right and left, ran for a basin of water, and making him take her chair, began
+washing away the blood stains.
+
+"Thunder!" he said, laughing, "How quickly we've changed places!"
+
+"Oh, oh!" she moaned, "It's a terrible wound; it might have killed you, and
+they WILL kill you yet."
+
+He took her hands and held them firmly. "Alida," he said, gravely yet kindly,
+"be still and listen to me."
+
+For a moment or two longer her bosom heaved with convulsive sobs, and then she
+grew quiet. "Don't you know you can't go away?" he asked, still retaining her
+hands and looking in her face.
+
+"I could for your sake," she began.
+
+"No, it wouldn't be for my sake.  I don't wish you to go, and wouldn't let
+you.  If you should let the Oakville rabble drive you away, I WOULD be in
+danger, and so would others, for I'd be worse on 'em than an earthquake. 
+After the lesson they've had tonight, they'll let us alone, and I'll let them
+alone.  You know I've tried to be honest with you from the first.  Believe me,
+then, the trouble's over unless we make more for ourselves.  Now, promise
+you'll do as I say and let me manage."
+
+"I'll try," she breathed softly.
+
+"No, no!  That won't do.  I'm beginning to find you out.  You may get some
+foolish, self-sacrificing notion in your head that it would be best for me,
+when it would be my ruination.  Will you promise?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Famous!  Now you can bathe my head all you please for it feels a little
+queer."
+
+"It's an awful wound," she said in tones of the deepest sympathy. "Oh, I'm so
+sorry!"
+
+"Pshaw!  My head is too hard for that little scamp of a Weeks to break.  His
+turn'll come next."
+
+She cut away the blood-clotted hair and bound up the rather severe scalp wound
+with a tenderness and sympathy that expressed itself even in her touch.  She
+was too confused and excited to be conscious of herself, but she had received
+some tremendously strong impressions.  Chief among them was the truth that
+nothing which had happened made any difference in him--that he was still the
+same loyal friend, standing between her and the world she dreaded--yes,
+between her and her own impulses toward self-sacrifice.  Sweetest of all was
+the assurance that he did this for his own sake as well as hers.  These facts
+seemed like a foothold in the mad torrent of feeling and shame which had been
+sweeping her away.  She could think of little more than that she was
+safe--safe because he was brave and loyal--and yes, safe because he wanted her
+and would not give her up.  The heart of a woman must be callous indeed, and
+her nature not only trivial but stony if she is not deeply touched under
+circumstances like these.
+
+In spite of his laughing contempt of danger, she trembled as she saw him ready
+to go out again; she wished to accompany him on his round of observation, but
+he scouted the idea, although it pleased him.  Standing in the door, she
+strained her eyes and listened breathlessly.  He soon returned and said,
+"They've all had enough.  We won't be disturbed again."
+
+He saw that her nerves needed quieting, and he set about the task with such
+simple tact as he possessed.  His first step was to light his pipe in the most
+nonchalant manner, and then he burst out laughing. "I'll hang that hickory up. 
+It has done too good service to be put to common use again.  Probably you
+never heard of a skimelton, Alida.  Well, they are not so uncommon in this
+region.  I suppose I'll have to own up to taking part in one myself when I was
+a young chap.  They usually are only rough larks and are taken good-naturedly. 
+I'm not on jesting terms with my neighbors, and they had no business to come
+here, but I wouldn't have made any row if they hadn't insulted you."
+
+Her head bowed very low as she faltered, "They've heard everything."
+
+He came right to her and took her hand. "Didn't I hear everything before they
+did?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, Alida, I'm not only satisfied with you, but I'm very grateful to you. 
+Why shouldn't I be when you are a good Christian woman?  I guess I'm the one
+to be suited, not Oakville. I should be as reckless as the devil if you should
+go away from me.  Don't I act like a man who's ready to stand up for and
+protect you?"
+
+"Yes, too ready.  It would kill me if anything happened to you on my account."
+
+"Well, the worst would happen," he said firmly, "if we don't go right on as
+we've begun.  If we go quietly on about our own affairs, we'll soon be let
+alone and that's all we ask."
+
+"Yes, yes indeed!  Don't worry, James.  I'll do as you wish."
+
+"Famous!  You never said 'James' to me before.  Why haven't you?"
+
+"I don't know," she faltered, with a sudden rush of color to her pale face.
+
+"Well, that's my name," he resumed, laughing. "I guess it's because we are
+getting better acquainted.
+
+She looked up and said impetuously, "You don't know how a woman feels when a
+man stands up for her as you did tonight."
+
+"Well, I know how a man feels when there is a woman so well worth standing up
+for.  It was a lucky thing that I had nothing heavier in my hand than that
+hickory."  All the while he was looking at her curiously; then he spoke his
+thought. "You're a quiet little woman, Alida, most times, but you're capable
+of a thunder gust now and then."
+
+"I'll try to be quiet at all times," she replied, with drooping eyes.
+
+"Oh, I'm not complaining!" he said, laughing. "I like the trait."
+
+He took a small pitcher and went to the dairy.  Returning, he poured out two
+glasses of milk and said, "Here's to your health and happiness, Alida; and
+when I don't stand up for the woman who started out to save me from a mob of
+murderers, may the next thing I eat or drink choke me.  You didn't know they
+were merely a lot of Oakville boys, did you?"
+
+"You can't make so light of it," said she. "They tried to close on you, and if
+that stone had struck you on the temple, it might have killed you.  They swore
+like pirates, and looked like ruffians with their blackened faces.  They
+certainly were not boys in appearance."
+
+"I'm afraid I swore too," he said sadly.
+
+"You had some excuse, but I'm sorry.  They would have hurt you if you hadn't
+kept them off."
+
+"Yes, they'd probably have given me a beating.  People do things in hot blood
+they wish they hadn't afterward.  I know this Oakville rough-scuff.  Since
+we've had it out, and they know what to expect, they'll give me a wide berth. 
+Now go and sleep.  You were never safer in your life."
+
+She did not trust herself to reply, but the glance she gave him from her
+tearful eyes was so eloquent with grateful feeling that he was suddenly
+conscious of some unwonted sensations.  He again patrolled the place and tied
+the dog near the barn.
+
+"It's barely possible that some of these mean cusses might venture to kindle a
+fire, but a bark from Towser will warn 'em off.  She IS a spirited little
+woman," he added, with a sharp change in soliloquy. "There's nothing
+milk-and-water about her.  Thunder!  I felt like kissing her when she looked
+at me so.  I guess that crack on my skull has made me a little light-headed."
+
+He lay down in his clothes so that he might rush out in case of any alarm, and
+he intended to keep awake.  Then, the first thing he knew, the sun was shining
+in the windows.
+
+It was long before Alida slept, and the burden of her thoughts confirmed the
+words that she had spoken so involuntarily. "You don't know how a woman feels
+when a man stands up for her as you did."  It is the nature of her sex to
+adore hardy, courageous manhood.  Beyond all power of expression, Alida felt
+her need of a champion and protector.  She was capable of going away for his
+sake, but she would go in terror and despair.  The words that had smitten her
+confirmed all her old fears of facing the world alone.  Then came the
+overpowering thought of his loyalty and kindness, of his utter and almost
+fierce repugnance to the idea of her leaving him.  In contrast with the man
+who had deceived and wronged her, Holcroft's course overwhelmed her very soul
+with a passion of grateful affection.  A new emotion, unlike anything she had
+ever known, thrilled her heart and covered her face with blushes. "I could die
+for him!" she murmured.
+
+She awoke late in the morning.  When at last she entered the kitchen she
+stopped in deep chagrin, for Holcroft had almost completed preparations for
+breakfast. "Ha, ha!" he laughed, "turn about is fair play."
+
+"Well," she sighed, "there's no use of making excuses now."
+
+"There's no occasion for any.  Did you ever see such a looking case as I am
+with this bandage around my head?"
+
+"Does it pain you?" she asked sympathetically.
+
+"Well, it does.  It pains like thunder."
+
+"The wound needs dressing again.  Let me cleanse and bind it up."
+
+"Yes, after breakfast."
+
+"No, indeed; now.  I couldn't eat my breakfast while you were suffering so."
+
+"I'm more unfeeling then than you are, for I could."
+
+She insisted on having her way, and then tore up her handkerchief to supply a
+soft linen bandage.
+
+"You're extravagant, Alida," but she only shook her head.
+
+"Famous!  That feels better.  What a touch you have!  Now, if you had a broken
+head, my fingers would be like a pair of tongs."
+
+She only shook her head and smiled.
+
+"You're as bad as Jane used to be.  She never said a word when she could shake
+or nod her meaning."
+
+"I should think you would be glad, after having been half talked to death by
+her mother."
+
+"As I said before, take your own way of doing things.  It seems the right way
+after it is done."
+
+A faint color came into her face, and she looked positively happy as she sat
+down to breakfast. "Are you sure your head feels better?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, and you look a hundred per cent better.  Well, I AM glad you had such a
+good sleep after all the hubbub."
+
+"I didn't sleep till toward morning," she said, with downcast eyes.
+
+"Pshaw!  That's too bad.  Well, no matter, you look like a different person
+from what you did when I first saw you.  You've been growing younger every
+day."
+
+Her face flushed like a girl's under his direct, admiring gaze, making her all
+the more pretty.  She hastened to divert direct attention from herself by
+asking, "You haven't heard from anyone this morning?"
+
+"No, but I guess the doctor has.  Some of those fellows will have to keep
+shady for a while."
+
+As they were finishing breakfast, Holcroft looked out of the open kitchen door
+and exclaimed, "By thunder!  We're going to hear from some of them now.  Here
+comes Mrs. Weeks, the mother of the fellow who hit me."
+
+"Won't you please receive her in the parlor?"
+
+"Yes, she won't stay long, you may be sure.  I'm going to give that Weeks
+tribe one lesson and pay off the whole score."
+
+He merely bowed coldly to Mrs. Weeks' salutation and offered her a chair.  The
+poor woman took out her handkerchief and began to mop her eyes, but Holcroft
+was steeled against her, not so much on account of the wound inflicted by her
+son as for the reason that he saw in her an accomplice with her husband in the
+fraud of Mrs. Mumpson.
+
+"I hope you're not badly hurt," she began.
+
+"It might be worse."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Holcroft!" she broke out sobbingly, "spare my son.  It would kill me
+if you sent him to prison."
+
+"He took the chance of killing me last night," was the cold reply. "What's far
+worse, he insulted my wife."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Holcroft!  He was young and foolish; he didn't realize--"
+
+"Were you and your husband young and foolish," he interrupted bitterly, "when
+you gulled me into employing that crazy cousin of yours?"
+
+This retort was so overwhelming that Mrs. Weeks sobbed speechlessly.
+
+Alida could not help overhearing the conversation, and she now glided into the
+room and stood by her husband's side.
+
+"James," she said, "won't you do me a favor, a great kindness?"
+
+Mrs. Weeks raised her eyes and looked wonderingly at this dreadful woman,
+against whom all Oakville was talking.
+
+"I know what you wish, Alida," he replied sternly, "but I can't do it.  This
+is a case for justice.  This woman's son was the leader of that vile crowd
+that insulted you last night.  I can forgive his injuring me, but not the
+words he used about you.  Moreover, when I was alone and struggling to keep my
+home, Mrs. Weeks took part with her husband in imposing on me their fraud of a
+cousin and in tricking me out of honest money.  Any woman with a heart in her
+breast would have tried to help a man situated as I was.  No, it's a clear
+case of justice, and her son shall go to jail."
+
+Mrs. Weeks wailed afresh at this final sentence.  Holcroft was amazed to see
+his wife drop on her knees beside his chair.  He raised her instantly. "Don't
+do such a thing as that," he said huskily.
+
+Without removing her pleading eyes from his face she asked gently, "Who told
+us to forgive as we would be forgiven?  James, I shall be very unhappy if you
+don't grant this mother's prayer."
+
+He tried to turn away, but she caught his hand and held his eyes with hers.
+"Alida," he said in strong agitation, "you heard the vile, false words that
+Timothy Weeks said last night.  They struck you down like a blow.  Can you
+forgive him?"
+
+"Yes, and I plead with you to forgive him.  Grant me my wish, James; I shall
+be so much happier, and so will you."
+
+"Well, Mrs. Weeks, now you know what kind of a woman your son came to insult. 
+You may tell your neighbors that there's one Christian in Oakville.  I yield
+to Mrs. Holcroft, and will take no further action in the affair if we are let
+alone."
+
+Mrs. Weeks was not a bad woman at heart, and she had received a wholesome
+lesson.  She came and took Alida's hand as she said, "Yes, you are a
+Christian--a better woman than I've been, but I aint so mean and bad but what,
+when I see my fault, I am sorry and can ask forgiveness.  I do ask your
+forgiveness, Mr. Holcroft.  I've been ashamed of myself ever since you brought
+my cousin back.  I thought she would try, when she had the chance you gave
+her, but she seems to have no sense."
+
+"There, there!  Let bygones be bygones," said the farmer in embarrassment.
+"I've surrendered.  Please don't say anything more."
+
+"You've got a kind heart, in spite--"
+
+"Oh, come now!  Please quit, or I'll begin to swear a little to keep up the
+reputation my neighbors have given me.  Go home and tell Tim to brace up and
+try to be a man.  When I say I'm done with a grudge, I AM done.  You and Mrs.
+Holcroft can talk all you like, but please excuse me," and with more than most
+men's horror of a scene, he escaped precipitately.
+
+"Sit down, Mrs. Weeks," said Alida kindly.
+
+"Well, I will.  I can't say much to excuse myself or my folks--"
+
+"You've already said everything, Mrs. Weeks," interrupted Alida gently;
+"you've said you are sorry."
+
+Mrs. Weeks stared a moment, and then resumed sententiously, "Well, I've heard
+more gospel in that remark than if I'd gone to church.  And I couldn't go to
+church, I could never have gone there again or held my head up anywhere
+if--if--"
+
+"That's all past and gone," said Alida, smiling. "When Mr. Holcroft says
+anything, you may depend on it."
+
+"Well, God bless you for intercedin'--you had so much to forgive. Nobody shall
+ever speak a word against you again while I've got breath to answer.  I wish
+you'd let me come and see you sometimes."
+
+"Whenever you wish, if you care to visit one who has had so much--so much
+trouble."
+
+"I see now that's all the more reason I should come, for if it hadn't been for
+you, I'd have been in bitter trouble myself.  We've been worse than heathen,
+standin' off and talking against you.  Oh, I've had a lesson I won't forget! 
+Well, I must hurry home, for I left Timothy and Lemuel in a dreadful state."
+
+Seeing the farmer in the barn as she was passing, she rushed to him. "You've
+got to shake hands with me, Mr. Holcroft.  Your wife IS a good woman, and
+she's a lady, too.  Anyone with half an eye can see she's not one of the
+common sort."
+
+The farmer shook the poor woman's hand good-naturedly and said heartily,
+"That's so!  All right, meeting's over.  Goodbye."  Then he turned to his work
+and chuckled, "That's what Tom Watterly said.  Thank the Lord!  She ISN'T of
+the common sort.  I've got to brace up and be more of a man as well as Tim
+Weeks."
+
+In spite of the pain in his head, Alida's words proved true.  He was happier
+than he had been in many a long day.  He had the glow which follows a generous
+act, and the thought that he had pleased a sweet little woman who somehow
+seemed very attractive to him that May morning; at the same time the old Adam
+in his nature led to a sneaking satisfaction that he had laid on the hickory
+so unsparingly the evening before.
+
+Alida uttered a low, happy laugh as she heard him whistling "Coronation" in
+jig time, and she hustled away the breakfast things with the eagerness of a
+girl, that she might be ready to read to him when he came in.
+
+
+Chapter XXVII. Farm and Farmer Bewitched
+
+The day grew warm, and having finished her tasks indoors and cared for the
+poultry, Alida brought a chair out in the porch.  Her eyes were dreamy with a
+vague, undefined happiness.  The landscape in itself was cause for exquisite
+pleasure, for it was an ideal day of the apple-blossoming period.  The old
+orchard back of the barn looked as if pink-and-white clouds had settled upon
+it, and scattered trees near and far were exhaling their fragrance.  The light
+breeze which fanned her cheek and bent the growing rye in an adjacent field
+was perfumed beyond the skill of art.  Not only were her favorite meadow larks
+calling to each other, but the thrushes had come and she felt that she had
+never heard such hymns as they were singing.  A burst of song from the lilac
+bush under the parlor window drew her eyes thither, and there was the paternal
+redbreast pouring out the very soul of ecstasy.  From the nest beneath him
+rose the black head and yellow beak of his brooding mate.  "How contented and
+happy she looks!" Alida murmured, "how happy they both are!  And the secret of
+it is HOME.  And to think that I, who was a friendless waif, am at home, also! 
+At home with Eden-like beauty and peace before my eyes.  But if it hadn't been
+for him, and if he were not brave, kind, and true to all he says--" and she
+shuddered at a contrast that rose before her fancy.
+
+She could now scarcely satisfy herself that it was only gratitude which filled
+her heart with a strange, happy tumult.  She had never been conscious of such
+exaltation before.  It is true, she had learned to cherish a strong affection
+for the man whom she had believed to be her husband, but chiefly because he
+had seemed kind and she had an affectionate disposition.  Until within the
+last few hours, her nature had never been touched and awakened in its
+profoundest depths.  She had never known before nor had she idealized the
+manhood capable of evoking the feelings which now lighted her eyes and gave to
+her face the supreme charm and beauty of womanhood.  In truth, it was a
+fitting day and time for the birth of a love like hers, simple, all-absorbing,
+and grateful.  It contained no element not in harmony with that May Sunday
+morning.
+
+Holcroft came and sat on the steps below her.  She kept her eyes on the
+landscape, for she was consciously enough on her guard now. "I rather guess
+you think, Alida, that you are looking at a better picture than any artist
+fellow could paint?" he remarked.
+
+"Yes," she replied hesitatingly, "and the picture seems all the more lovely
+and full of light because the background is so very dark.  I've been thinking
+of what happened here last night and what might have happened, and how I felt
+then."
+
+"You feel better--different now, don't you?  You certainly look so."
+
+"Yes!--You made me very happy by yielding to Mrs. Weeks."
+
+"Oh!  I didn't yield to her at all."
+
+"Very well, have it your own way, then."
+
+"I think you had it your way."
+
+"Are you sorry?"
+
+"Do I look so?  How did you know I'd be happier if I gave in?"
+
+"Because, as you say, I'm getting better acquainted with you.  YOU couldn't
+help being happier for a generous act."
+
+"I wouldn't have done it, though, if it hadn't been for you."
+
+"I'm not so sure about that."
+
+"I am.  You're coming to make me feel confoundedly uncomfortable in my
+heathenish life."
+
+"I wish I could."
+
+"I never had such a sermon in my life as you gave me this morning.  A
+Christian act like yours is worth a year of religious talk."
+
+She looked at him wistfully for a moment and then asked, a little abruptly,
+"Mr. Holcroft, have you truly forgiven that Weeks family?"
+
+"Oh, yes!  I suppose so.  I've forgiven the old lady, anyhow.  I've shaken
+hands with her."
+
+"If her husband and son should come and apologize and say they were sorry,
+would you truly and honestly forgive them?"
+
+"Certainly!  I couldn't hold a grudge after that.  What are you aiming at?"
+and he turned and looked inquiringly into her face.
+
+It was flushed and tearful in its eager, earnest interest. "Don't you see?"
+she faltered.
+
+He shook his head, but was suddenly and strangely moved by her expression.
+
+"Why, Mr. Holcroft, if you can honestly forgive those who have wronged you,
+you ought to see how ready God is to forgive."
+
+He fairly started to his feet so vividly the truth came home to him,
+illumined, as it was, by a recent and personal experience.  After a moment, he
+slowly sat down again and said, with a long breath, "That was a close shot,
+Alida."
+
+"I only wish you to have the trust and comfort which this truth should bring
+you," she said. "It seems a pity you should do yourself needless injustice
+when you are willing to do what is right and kind by others."
+
+"It's all a terrible muddle, Alida.  If God is so ready to forgive, how do you
+account for all the evil and suffering in the world?"
+
+"I don't account for it and can't.  I'm only one of his little children; often
+an erring one, too.  You've been able to forgive grown people, your equals,
+and strangers in a sense.  Suppose you had a little boy that had done wrong,
+but said he was sorry, would you hold a grudge against him?"
+
+"The idea!  I'd be a brute."
+
+She laughed softly as she asked again, "don't you see?"
+
+He sat looking thoughtfully away across the fields for a long time, and
+finally asked, "Is your idea of becoming a Christian just being forgiven like
+a child and then trying to do right?"
+
+"Yes.  Why not?"
+
+"Well," he remarked, with a grim laugh. "I didn't expect to be cornered in
+this way."
+
+"You who are truthful should face the truth.  It would make you happier.  A
+good deal that was unexpected has happened.  When I look out on a scene like
+this and think that I am safe and at home, I feel that God has been very good
+to me and that you have, too.  I can't bear to think that you have that old
+trouble on your mind--the feeling that you had been a Christian once, but was
+not one now.  Being sure that there is no need of your continuing to feel so,
+what sort of return would I be making for all your kindness if I did not try
+to show you what is as clear to me as this sunshine?"
+
+"You are a good woman, Alida.  Believing as you do, you have done right to
+speak to me, and I never believed mortal lips could speak so to the purpose. 
+I shall think of what you have said, for you have put things in a new light. 
+But say, Alida, what on earth possesses you to call me 'Mr.'?  You don't need
+to be scared half to death every time to call me by my first name, do you?"
+
+"Scared?  Oh, no!"  She was a trifle confused, he thought, but then her tone
+was completely reassuring.
+
+The day was one long remembered by both.  As in nature about them, the
+conditions of development and rapid change now existed.
+
+She did not read aloud very much, and long silences fell between them.  They
+were reaching a higher plane of companionship, in which words are not always
+essential.  Both had much to think about, and their thoughts were like roots
+which prepare for blossom and fruit.
+
+With Monday, busy life was resumed.  The farmer began planting his corn and
+Alida her flower seeds.  Almost every day now added to the brood of little
+chicks under her care.  The cows went out to pasture.  Holcroft brought in an
+increasing number of overflowing pails of milk, and if the labors of the dairy
+grew more exacting, they also grew more profitable.  The tide had turned;
+income was larger than outgo, and it truly seemed to the long-harassed man
+that an era of peace and prosperity had set in.
+
+To a superficial observer things might have appeared to be going on much as
+before, but there were influences at work which Holcroft did not clearly
+comprehend.
+
+As Alida had promised herself, she spent all the money which the eggs brought
+in, but Holcroft found pretty muslin curtains at the parlor windows, and
+shades which excluded the glare from the kitchen.  Better china took the place
+of that which was cracked and unsightly.  In brief, a subtle and refining
+touch was apparent all over the house.
+
+"How fine we are getting!" he remarked one evening at supper.
+
+"I've only made a beginning," she replied, nodding defiantly at him. "The
+chickens will paint the house before the year is over."
+
+"Phew!  When do the silk dresses come in?"
+
+"When your broadcloth does."
+
+"Well, if this goes on, I shall certainly have to wear purple and fine linen
+to keep pace."
+
+"Fine linen, certainly.  When you take the next lot of eggs to town I shall
+tell you just the number of yards I need to make half a dozen extra fine
+shirts.  Those you have are getting past mending."
+
+"Do you think I'll let you spend your money in that way?"
+
+"You'll let me spend MY money just as I please--in the way that will do me the
+most good!"
+
+"What a saucy little woman you are becoming!" he said, looking at her so
+fondly that she quickly averted her eyes.  "It's a way people fall into when
+humored," she answered.
+
+"See here, Alida, you're up to some magic.  It seems but the other day I
+brought you here, a pale ghost of a woman.  As old Jonathan Johnson said, you
+were 'enj'yin' poor health.'  Do you know what he said when I took him off so
+he wouldn't put you through the catechism?"
+
+"No," she replied, with a deprecating smile and rising color.
+
+"He said he was 'afeared I'd been taken in, you were such a sickly lookin'
+critter.'  Ha! Ha!  Wish he might see you now, with that flushed face of
+yours.  I never believed in magic, but I'll have to come to it.  You are
+bewitched, and are being transformed into a pretty young girl right under my
+eyes; the house is bewitched, and is growing pretty, too, and pleasanter all
+the time.  The cherry and apple trees are bewitched, for they never blossomed
+so before; the hens are bewitched, they lay as if possessed; the--"
+
+"Oh, stop! Or I shall think that you're bewitched yourself."
+
+"I truly begin to think I am."
+
+"Oh, well!  Since we all and everything are affected in the same way, it don't
+matter."
+
+"But it does.  It's unaccountable.  I'm beginning to rub my eyes and pinch
+myself to wake up."
+
+"If you like it, I wouldn't wake up."
+
+"Suppose I did, and saw Mrs. Mumpson sitting where you do, Jane here, and Mrs.
+Wiggins smoking her pipe in the corner.  The very thought makes me shiver.  My
+first words would be, 'Please pass the cold p'ison.'"
+
+"What nonsense you are talking tonight!" she tried to say severely, but the
+pleased, happy look in her eyes betrayed her.  He regarded her with the open
+admiration of a boy, and she sought to divert his attention by asking, "What
+do you think has become of Jane?"
+
+"I don't know--stealing around like a strange cat in some relation's house, I
+suppose."
+
+"You once said you would like to do something for her."
+
+"Well, I would.  If I could afford it, I'd like to send her to school."
+
+"Would you like her to come here and study lessons part of the time?"
+
+He shivered visibly. "No, Alida, and you wouldn't either.  She'd make you more
+nervous than she would me, and that's saying a good deal.  I do feel very
+sorry for her, and if Mrs. Weeks comes to see you, we'll find out if something
+can't be done, but her presence would spoil all our cozy comfort.  The fact
+is, I wouldn't enjoy having anyone here.  You and I are just about company
+enough.  Still, if you feel that you'd like to have some help--"
+
+"Oh, no!  I haven't enough to do."
+
+"But you're always a-doing.  Well, if you're content, I haven't Christian
+fortitude enough to make any changes."
+
+She smiled and thought that she was more than content.  She had begun to
+detect symptoms in her husband which her own heart enabled her to interpret. 
+In brief, it looked as if he were drifting on a smooth, swift tide to the same
+haven in which she was anchored.
+
+One unusually warm morning for the season, rain set in after breakfast. 
+Holcroft did not fret in the least that he could not go to the fields, nor did
+he, as had been his custom at first, find rainy-day work at the barn.  The
+cows, in cropping the lush grass, had so increased their yield of milk that it
+was necessary to churn every other day, and Alida was busy in the dairy.  This
+place had become inviting by reason of its coolness, and she had rendered it
+more so by making it perfectly clean and sweet.  Strange to say, it contained
+another chair besides the one she usually occupied.  The apartment was large
+and stone-flagged.  Along one side were shelves filled with rows of shining
+milk-pans.  In one corner stood the simple machinery which the old dog put in
+motion when tied upon his movable walk, and the churn was near.  An iron pipe,
+buried deep in the ground, brought cool spring water from the brook above. 
+This pipe emptied its contents with a low gurgle into a shallow, oblong
+receptacle sunk in the floor, and was wide and deep enough for two stone
+crocks of ample size to stand abreast up to their rims in the water.  The
+cream was skimmed into these stone jars until they were full, then Holcroft
+emptied them into the churn.  He had charged Alida never to attempt this part
+of the work, and indeed it was beyond her strength.  After breakfast on
+churning days, he prepared everything and set the dog at work.  Then he
+emptied the churn of the buttermilk when he came in to dinner.
+
+All the associations of the place were pleasant to Alida.  It was here that
+her husband had shown patience as well as kindness in teaching her how to
+supplement his work until her own experience and judgment gave her a better
+skill than he possessed.  Many pleasant, laughing words had passed between
+them in this cool, shadowy place, and on a former rainy morning he had brought
+a chair down that he might keep her company.  She had not carried it back, nor
+was she very greatly surprised to see him saunter in and occupy it on the
+present occasion.  She stood by the churn, her figure outlined clearly in the
+light from the open door, as she poured in cold water from time to time to
+hasten and harden the gathering butter.  Her right sleeve was rolled well
+back, revealing a white arm that was becoming beautifully plump and round.  An
+artist would have said that her attitude and action were unconsciously natural
+and graceful.  Holcroft had scarcely the remotest idea of artistic effect, but
+he had a sensible man's perception of a charming woman when she is charming.
+
+"Mr. Holcroft," she asked very gravely, "will you do something for me?"
+
+"Yes, half a dozen things."
+
+"You promise?"
+
+"Certainly!  What's the trouble?"
+
+"I don't mean there shall be any if I can help it," she answered with a light
+ripple of laughter. "Please go and put on your coat."
+
+"How you've humbugged me!  It's too hot."
+
+"Oh, you've got to do it; you promised.  You can't stay here unless you do."
+
+"So you are going to take care of me as if I were a small boy?"
+
+"You need care--sometimes."
+
+He soon came back and asked, "Now may I stay?"
+
+"Yes.  Please untie the dog.  Butter's come."
+
+"I should think it would, or anything else at your coaxing."
+
+"Oh-h, what a speech!  Hasn't that a pretty golden hue?" she asked, holding up
+a mass of the butter she was ladling from the churn into a wooden tray.
+
+"Yes, you are making the gilt-edge article now.  I don't have to sell it to
+Tom Watterly any more."
+
+"I'd like to give him some, though."
+
+He was silent, and something like sudden rage burned in his heart that Mrs.
+Watterly would not permit the gift.  That anyone should frown on his having
+such a helper as Alida was proving herself to be, made him vindictive. 
+Fortunately her face was turned away, and she did not see his heavy frown. 
+Then, to shield her from a disagreeable fact, he said quickly, "do you know
+that for over a year I steadily went behind my expenses . And that your butter
+making has turned the tide already?  I'm beginning to get ahead again."
+
+"I'm SO glad," and her face was radiant.
+
+"Yes, I should know that from your looks.  It's clearer every day that I got
+the best of our bargain.  I never dreamed, though, that I should enjoy your
+society as I do--that we should become such very good friends.  That wasn't in
+the bargain, was it?"
+
+"Bargain!"  The spirited way with which she echoed the word, as if thereby
+repudiating anything like a sordid side to their mutual relations, was not
+lost on her wondering and admiring partner.  She checked herself suddenly.
+"Now let me teach YOU how to make butter," and with the tray in her lap, she
+began washing the golden product and pressing out the milk.
+
+He laughed in a confused delighted way at her piquant, half saucy manner as he
+watched her deft round arm and shapely hand.
+
+"The farmers' wives in Oakville would say your hands were too little to do
+much."
+
+"They would?" and she raised her blue eyes indignantly to his. "No matter, you
+are the one to say about that."
+
+"I say they do too much.  I shall have to get Jane to help you."
+
+"By all means!  Then you'll have more society."
+
+"That was a home shot.  You know how I dote on everybody's absence, even
+Jane's."
+
+"You dote on butter.  See how firm and yellow it's getting.  You wouldn't
+think it was milk-white cream a little while ago, would you?  Now I'll put in
+the salt and you must taste it, for you're a connoisseur."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"Judge, then."
+
+"You know a sight more than I do, Alida."
+
+"I'm learning all the time."
+
+"So am I--to appreciate you."
+
+"Listen to the sound of the rain and the water as it runs into the
+milk-cooler.  It's like low music, isn't it?"
+
+Poor Holcroft could make no better answer than a sneeze.
+
+"Oh-h," she exclaimed, "you're catching cold?  Come, you must go right
+upstairs.  You can't stay here another minute.  I'm nearly through."
+
+"I was never more contented in my life."
+
+"You've no right to worry me.  What would I do if you got sick?  Come, I'll
+stop work till you go."
+
+"Well then, little boss, goodbye."
+
+With a half suppressed smile at his obedience Alida watched his reluctant
+departure.  She kept on diligently at work, but one might have fancied that
+her thoughts rather than her exertions were flushing her cheeks.
+
+It seemed to her that but a few moments elapsed before she followed him, but
+he had gone.  Then she saw that the rain had ceased and that the clouds were
+breaking.  His cheerful whistle sounded reassuringly from the barn, and a
+little later he drove up the lane with a cart.
+
+She sat down in the kitchen and began sewing on the fine linen they had jested
+about.  Before long she heard a light step.  Glancing up, she saw the most
+peculiar and uncanny-looking child that had ever crossed her vision, and with
+dismal presentiment knew it was Jane.
+
+
+Chapter XXVIII. Another Waif
+
+It was indeed poor, forlorn little Jane that had appeared like a specter in
+the kitchen door.  She was as wet and bedraggled as a chicken caught in a
+shower.  A little felt hat hung limp over her ears; her pigtail braid had lost
+its string and was unraveling at the end, and her torn, sodden shoes were
+ready to drop from her feet.  She looked both curiously and apprehensively at
+Alida with her little blinking eyes, and then asked in a sort of breathless
+voice, "Where's him?"
+
+"Mr. Holcroft?"
+
+Jane nodded.
+
+"He's gone out to the fields.  You are Jane, aren't you?"
+
+Another nod.
+
+"Oh, DEAR!" groaned Alida mentally; "I wish she hadn't come."  Then with a
+flush of shame the thought crossed her mind, "She perhaps is a friendless and
+homeless as I was, and , and 'him' is also her only hope.  "Come in, Jane,"
+she said kindly, "and tell me everything."
+
+"Be you his new girl?"
+
+"I'm his wife," said Alida, smiling.
+
+Jane stopped; her mouth opened and her eyes twinkled with dismay. "Then he is
+married, after all?" she gasped.
+
+"Yes, why not?"
+
+"Mother said he'd never get anyone to take him."
+
+"Well, you see she was mistaken."
+
+"She's wrong about everything. Well, it's no use then," and the child turned
+and sat down on the doorstep.
+
+Alida was perplexed.  From the way Jane wiped her eyes with her wet sleeve,
+she was evidently crying.  Coming to her, Alida said, "What is no use, Jane? 
+Why are you crying?"
+
+"I thought--he--might--p'raps--let me stay and work for him."
+
+Alida was still more perplexed.  What could be said by way of comfort, feeling
+sure as she did that Holcroft would be bitterly hostile to the idea of keeping
+the child?  The best she could do was to draw the little waif out and obtain
+some explanation of her unexpected appearance. But first she asked, "Have you
+had any breakfast?"
+
+Jane shook her head.
+
+"Oh, then you must have some right away."
+
+"Don't want any.  I want to die.  I oughtn' ter been born."
+
+"Tell me your troubles, Jane.  Perhaps I can help you."
+
+"No, you'd be like the rest.  They all hate me and make me feel I'm in the
+way.  He's the only one that didn't make me feel like a stray cat, and now
+he's gone and got married," and the child sobbed aloud.
+
+Her grief was pitiful to see, for it was overwhelming.  Alida stooped down,
+and gently lifting the child up, brought her in.  Then she took off the wet
+hat and wiped the tear-stained face with her handkerchief. "Wait a minute,
+Jane, till I bring you something," and she ran to the dairy for a glass of
+milk. "You must drink it, she said, kindly but firmly.
+
+The child gulped it down, and with it much of her grief, for this was
+unprecedented treatment and was winning her attention.
+
+"Say," she faltered, "will you ask him to let me stay?"
+
+"Yes, I'll ask him, but I can't promise that he will."
+
+"You won't ask him 'fore my face and then tell him not to behind my back?" and
+there was a sly, keen look in her eyes which tears could not conceal.
+
+"No," said Alida gravely, "that's not my way.  How did you get here, Jane?"
+
+"Run away."
+
+"From where?"
+
+"Poorhouse."
+
+Alida drew a quick breath and was silent a few moments. "Is--is your mother
+there?" she asked at length.
+
+"Yes.  They wouldn't let us visit round any longer."
+
+"Didn't your mother or anyone know you were coming?"
+
+Jane shook her head.
+
+Alida felt that it would be useless to burden the unhappy child with
+misgivings as to the result, and her heart softened toward her as one who in
+her limited way had known the bitterness and dread which in that same
+almshouse had overwhelmed her own spirit.  She could only say gently, "Well,
+wait till Mr. Holcroft comes, and then we'll see what he says."  She herself
+was both curious and anxious as to his course. "It will be a heavy cross," she
+thought, "but I should little deserve God's goodness to me if I did not
+befriend this child."
+
+Every moment added weight to this unexpected burden of duty.  Apart from all
+consideration of Jane's peculiarities, the isolation with Holcroft had been a
+delight in itself.  Their mutual enjoyment of each other's society had been
+growing from day to day, and she, more truly than he, had shrunk from the
+presence of another as an unwelcome intrusion.  Conscious of her secret,
+Jane's prying eyes were already beginning to irritate her nerves.  Never had
+she seen a human face that so completely embodied her idea of inquisitiveness
+as the uncanny visage of this child.  She saw that she would be watched with a
+tireless vigilance.  Her recoil, however, was not so much a matter of
+conscious reasoning and perception as it was an instinctive feeling of
+repulsion caused by the unfortunate child.  It was the same old story.  Jane
+always put the women of a household on pins and needles just as her mother
+exasperated the men.  Alida had to struggle hard during a comparatively silent
+hour to fight down the hope that Holcroft would not listen to Jane's and her
+own request.
+
+As she stepped quickly and lightly about in her preparations for dinner, the
+girl watched her intently.  At last she gave voice to her thoughts and said,
+"If mother'd only worked round smart as you, p'raps she'd hooked him 'stid er
+you."
+
+Alida's only reply was a slight frown, for the remark suggested disagreeable
+images and fancies. "Oh, how can I endure it?" she sighed.  She determined to
+let Jane plead her own cause at first, thinking that perhaps this would be the
+safest way.  If necessary, she would use her influence against a hostile
+decision, let it cost in discomfort what it might.
+
+At a few moments before twelve the farmer came briskly toward the house, and
+was evidently in the best of spirits.  When he entered and saw Jane, his
+countenance indicated so much dismay that Alida could scarcely repress a
+smile.  The child rose and stood before him like a culprit awaiting sentence. 
+She winked hard to keep the tears back, for there was no welcome in his
+manner.  She could not know how intensely distasteful was her presence at this
+time, nor had Holcroft himself imagined how unwelcome a third person in his
+house could be until he saw the intruder before him.  He had only felt that he
+was wonderfully contented and happy in his home, and that Jane would be a
+constant source of annoyance and restraint.  Moreover, it might lead to
+visitation from Mrs. Mumpson, and that was the summing up of earthly ills. 
+But the child's appearance and manner were so forlorn and deprecating that
+words of irritation died upon his lips.  He gravely shook hands with her and
+then drew out the story which Alida had learned.
+
+"Why, Jane," he exclaimed, frowning, "Mr. Watterly will be scouring the
+country for you.  I shall have to take you back right after dinner."
+
+"I kinder hoped," she sobbed, "that you'd let me stay.  I'd stay in the barn
+if I couldn't be in the house.  I'd just as soon work outdoors, too."
+
+"I don't think you'd be allowed to stay," said the farmer, with a sinking
+heart; "and then--perhaps your mother would be coming here."
+
+"I can't stand mother no more'n you can" said the girl, through her set teeth. 
+"I oughtn'ter been born, for there's no place for me in the world."
+
+Holcroft looked at his wife, his face expressive of the utmost annoyance,
+worry, and irresolution.  Her glance was sympathetic, but she said nothing,
+feeling that if he could make the sacrifice from his own will he should have
+the chance. "You can't begin to know how much trouble this may lead to, Jane,"
+he resumed. "You remember how your other threatened to take the law upon me,
+and it wouldn't be possible for you to stay here without her consent."
+
+"She oughter consent; I'll make her consent!" cried the child, speaking as if
+driven to desperation. "What's she ever done for me but teach me mean ways? 
+Keep me or kill me, for I must be in some place where I've a right to be away
+from mother.  I've found that there's no sense in her talk, and it drives me
+crazy."
+
+Although Jane's words and utterance were strangely uncouth, they contained a
+despairing echo which the farmer could not resist.  Turning his troubled face
+to his wife, he began, ""If this is possible, Alida, it will be a great deal
+harder on you than it will on me.  I don't feel that I would be doing right by
+you unless you gave your consent with full knowledge of--"
+
+"Then please let her stay, if it is possible.  She seems to need a friend and
+home as much as another that you heard about."
+
+"There's no chance of such a blessed reward in this case," he replied, with a
+grim laugh.  Then, perplexed indeed, he continued to Jane, "I'm just as sorry
+for you as I can be, but there's no use of getting my wife and self in trouble
+which in the end will do you no good.  You are too young to understand all
+that your staying may lead to."
+
+"It won't lead to mother's comin' here, and that's the worst that could
+happen.  Since she can't do anything for me she's got to let me do for
+myself."
+
+"Alida, please come with me in the parlor a moment.  You stay here, Jane." 
+When they were alone, he resumed, "Somehow, I feel strangely unwilling to have
+that child live with us.  We were enjoying our quiet life so much.  Then you
+don't realize how uncomfortable she will make you, Alida."
+
+"Yes, I do."
+
+"I don't think you can yet.  Your sympathies are touched now, but she'll watch
+you and irritate you in a hundred ways.  Don't her very presence make you
+uncomfortable?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, then, she can't stay," he began decidedly. "This is your home, and no
+one shall make you uncomfortable--"
+
+"But I should be a great deal more uncomfortable if she didn't stay," Alida
+interrupted. "I should feel that I did not deserve my home.  Not long ago my
+heart was breaking because I was friendless and in trouble.  What could I
+think of myself if I did not entreat you in behalf of this poor child?"
+
+"Thunder!" ejaculated Holcroft. "I guess I was rather friendless and troubled
+myself, and I didn't know the world had in it such a good friend as you've
+become, Alida.  Well, well!  You've put it in such a light that I'd be almost
+tempted to take the mother, also."
+
+"No," she replied, laughing; "we'll draw the line at the mother."
+
+"Well, I'll take Jane to town this afternoon, and if her mother will sign an
+agreement to leave us all in peace, we'll give up our old cozy comfort of
+being alone.  I suppose it must be a good deed, since it's so mighty hard to
+do it," he concluded with a wry face, leading the way to the kitchen again. 
+She smiled as if his words were already rewarding her self denial.
+
+"Well, Jane," he resumed, "Mrs. Holcroft has spoken in your behalf, and if we
+can arrange matters so that you can stay, you will have her to thank chiefly. 
+I'll take you back to the poorhouse after dinner, so it may be known what's
+become of you.  Then, if your mother'll sign an agreement to make no trouble
+and not come here, we'll give you a home until we can find a better place for
+you."
+
+There was no outburst of gratitude.  The repressed, dwarfed nature of the
+child was incapable of this, yet there was an unwonted little thrill of hope
+in her heart.  Possibly it was like the beginning of life in a seed under the
+first spring rays of the sun.  She merely nodded to Holcroft as if the matter
+had been settled as far as it could be, and ignored Alida.
+
+"Why don't you thank Mrs. Holcroft?" he asked.
+
+Then Jane turned and nodded at Alida.  Her vocabulary of thanks was
+undeveloped.
+
+"She's glad," said Alida. "You'll see.  Now that it's settled, we hope you're
+hungry, Jane, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes, I be.  Can't I help you put things on the table?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Holcroft looked at the two for a moment, and then shook his head as he went up
+to his room. "I thought my wife was nice and pleasant looking before," he
+thought, "but she's like a picture beside that child.  Well, she has behaved
+handsomely.  Tom Watterly didn't tell half the truth when he said she was not
+of the common run.  She's a Christian in deeds, not talk.  What's that in
+Scripture about 'I was hungry'?  Well, well! She makes religion kind of
+natural and plain like, whether it's easy or not.  Thunder!  What a joke it is
+to see her so grateful because I've given her a chance to help me out of the
+worst scrape a man could be in!  As if she hadn't changed everything for the
+better! Here I am sure of my home and getting ahead in the world again, and
+it's all her doing."
+
+In admiration of his wife Holcroft quite forgot that there had been any
+self-sacrifice on his part, and he concluded that he could endure Jane and
+almost anything else as long as Alida continued to look after his comfort and
+interests.
+
+Now that the worst stress of Jane's anxiety was over, she proved that she was
+half starved.  Indeed she had few misgivings now, for her confidence that
+Holcroft would accomplish what he attempted was almost unbounded.  It was a
+rather silent meal at first, for the farmer and his wife had much to think
+about and Jane much to do in making up for many limited meals.  At last
+Holcroft smiled so broadly that Alida said, "Something seems to please you."
+
+"Yes, more than one thing.  It might be a great deal worse, and was, not long
+ago.  I was thinking of old times."
+
+"How pleasant they must have been to make you look so happy!"
+
+"They had their uses, and make me think of a picture I saw in a store window
+in town.  It was a picture of a woman, and she took my fancy amazingly.  But
+the point uppermost in my mind was a trick of the fellow who painted her.  He
+had made the background as dark as night and so she stood out as if alive; and
+she looked so sweet and good that I felt like shaking hands with her.  I now
+see why the painter made the background so dark"
+
+Alida smiled mischievously as she replied, "That was his art.  He knew that
+almost anyone would appear well against such a background."
+
+But Holcroft was much too direct to be diverted from his thought or its
+expression. "The man knew the mighty nice-looking woman he had painted would
+look well," he said, "and I know of another woman who appears better against a
+darker background.  That's enough to make a man smile who has been through
+what I have."
+
+She could not help a flush of pleasure or disguise the happy light in her
+eyes, but she looked significantly at Jane, who, mystified and curious, was
+glancing from one to the other.
+
+"Confound it!" thought the farmer. "That'll be the way of it now. Here's a
+little pitcher that's nearly all ears.  Well, we're in for it and must do our
+duty."
+
+Going to town that day involved no slight inconvenience, but Holcroft dropped
+everything and rapidly made his preparations.
+
+When Alida was left alone with Jane, the latter began clearing the table with
+alacrity, and after a few furtive glances at Mrs. Holcroft, yielded to the
+feeling that she should make some acknowledgment of the intercession in her
+behalf. "Say," she began, "I thought you wasn't goin; to stand up for me,
+after all. Women folks are liars, mostly."
+
+"You are mistaken, Jane.  If you wish to stay with us, you must tell the truth
+and drop all sly ways."
+
+"That's what he said when I first come."
+
+"I say it too.  You see a good deal, Jane.  Try to see what will please people
+instead of what you can find out about them.  It's a much better plan.  Now,
+as a friend, I tell you of one thing you had better not do.  You shouldn't
+watch and listen to Mr. Holcroft unless he speaks to you.  He doesn't like to
+be watched--no one does.  It isn't nice; and if you come to us, I think you
+will try to do what is nice.  Am I not right?"
+
+"I dunno how," said Jane.
+
+"It will be part of my business to teach you.  You ought to understand all
+about your coming.  Mr. Holcroft doesn't take you because he needs your work,
+but because he's sorry for you, and wishes to give you a chance to do better
+and learn something.  You must make up your mind to lessons, and learning to
+talk and act nicely, as well as to do such work as is given you.  Are you
+willing to do what I say and mind me pleasantly and promptly?"
+
+Jane looked askance at the speaker and was vaguely suspicious of some trick. 
+In her previous sojourn at the farmhouse she had concluded that it was her
+best policy to keep in Holcroft's good graces, even though she had to defy her
+mother and Mrs. Wiggins, and she was now by no means ready to commit herself
+to this new domestic power.  She had received the impression that the
+authority and continued residence of females in this household was involved in
+much uncertainty, and although Alida was in favor now and the farmer's wife,
+she didn't know what "vicissitudes" (as her mother would denominate them)
+might occur.  Holcroft was the only fixed and certain quantity in her troubled
+thoughts, and after a little hesitation she replied, "I'll do what he says;
+I'm goin' to mind him."
+
+"Suppose he tells you to mind me?"
+
+"Then I will.  That ud be mindin' him.  I'm goin' to stick to him, for I made
+out by it better before than by mindin' mother and Mrs. Wiggins."
+
+Alida now understood the child and laughed aloud. "You are right," she said.
+"I won't ask you to do anything contrary to his wishes.  Now tell me, Jane,
+what other clothes have you besides those you are wearing?"
+
+It did not take the girl long to inventory her scanty wardrobe, and then Alida
+rapidly made out a list of what was needed immediately. "Wait here," she said,
+and putting on a pretty straw hat, one of her recent purchases, she started
+for the barn.
+
+Holcroft had his wagon and team almost ready when Alida joined him, and led
+the way to the floor between the sweet-smelling hay-mows.
+
+"One thing leads to another," she began, looking at him a little
+deprecatingly. "You must have noticed the condition of Jane's clothes."
+
+"She does look like a little scarecrow, now I come to think of it," he
+admitted.
+
+"Yes, she's not much better off than I was," Alida returned, with downcast
+eyes and rising color.
+
+Her flushing face was so pretty under the straw hat, and the dark mow as a
+background brought out her figure so finely that he thought of the picture
+again and laughed aloud for pleasure.  She looked up in questioning surprise,
+thus adding a new grace.
+
+"I wish that artist fellow was here now," he exclaimed. "He could make another
+picture that would suit me better than the one I saw in town."
+
+"What nonsense!" she cried, quickly averting her face from his admiring
+scrutiny. "Come, I'm here to talk business and you've no time to waste.  I've
+made out a list of what the child actually must have to be respectable."
+
+"You're right, Alida," said the farmer, becoming grave at once over a question
+of dollars and cents. "As you say, one thing leads to another, and if we take
+the girl we must clothe her decently.  But then, I guess she'll earn enough to
+pay her way.  It isn't that I worry about so much," he broke out
+discontentedly, "but the interference with our quiet, cozy life.  Things are
+going so smoothly and pleasantly that I hate a change of any kind."
+
+"We mustn't be selfish, you know," she replied. "You are doing a kind,
+generous act, and I respect you all the more for it."
+
+"That settles everything.  You'll like me a little better for it, too, won't
+you?" he asked hesitatingly.
+
+She laughed outright at this question and answered, "It won't do to take too
+much self-sacrifice out of your act.  There's something which does us all
+good.  She ought to have a spelling and a writing book also."
+
+Holcroft was assuredly falling under the sway of the little blind god, for he
+began at once to misunderstand Alida. "You are very fond of self-sacrifice,"
+he said, rather stiffly. "Yes, I'll get everything on your list," and he took
+it from her hand. "Now I must be off," he added, "for I wish to get back
+before night, and it's so warm I can't drive fast.  Sorry I have to go, for I
+can't say I dote on self-sacrifice."
+
+Alida but partially understood his sudden change of mood, nor was the farmer
+much better enlightened himself in regard to his irritation.  He had received
+an unexpected impression and it seemed to fit in with other things and explain
+them.  She returned slowly and dejectedly to the house, leaving unsaid the
+words she meant to speak about Jane's relations to her.  Now she wished that
+she had imitated Jane, and merely nodded to the farmer's questions. "If he
+knew how far I am beyond the point of liking, I don't know what he'd do or
+say," she thought, "and I suppose that's the reason I couldn't answer him
+frankly, in a way that would have satisfied him.  It's a pity I couldn't begin
+to just LIKE a little at first, as he does and have everything grow as
+gradually and quietly as one of his cornstalks.  That's the way I meant it
+should be; but when he stood up for me and defended me from those men, my
+heart just melted, and in spite of myself, I felt I could die for him.  It
+can't be such an awful thing for a woman to fall in love with her husband, and
+yet--yet I'd rather put my hand in the fire than let him know how I feel.  Oh,
+dear!  I wish Jane hadn't been born, as she says.  Trouble is beginning
+already, and it was all so nice before she came."
+
+In a few moments Holcroft drove up.  Alida stood in the door and looked
+timidly at him.  He thought she appeared a little pale and troubled, but his
+bad mood prevailed and he only asked briefly, "Can't I get something for you?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Well, goodbye, then," and he drove away with Jane, who was confirmed in her
+line of policy. "She's afraid of 'im too," thought the child. "Mind her! 
+Guess not, unless he says so."  She watched the farmer furtively and concluded
+that she had never known him to look more grim or be more silent even under
+her mother's blandishments. "He's married this one, I s'pose, to keep house
+for 'im, but he don't like her follerin' 'im up or bein' for'ard any more'n he
+did mother.  Shouldn't wonder if he didn't keep her, either, if she don't suit
+better.  She needn't 'a' put on such airs with me, for I'm goin' to stick to
+him."
+
+
+Chapter XXIX. Husband and Wife in Trouble
+
+Like many others with simple, strong natures, Holcroft could not be
+wrong-headed moderately, and his thoughts, once started in a direction were
+apt to carry him much farther than the cause warranted.  Engrossed in painful
+and rather bitter musings, he paid no heed to Jane and almost forgot his
+errand to town. "I was a fool to ask that question," he thought. "I was
+getting silly and sentimental with my talk about the picture and all that. 
+She laughed at me and reminded me I was wasting time.  Of course she can't
+like an old, hard-featured man like me.  I'm beginning to understand her now. 
+She made a business marriage with me and means to live up to her agreement. 
+She's honest; she feels I've done her a real kindness in giving her a home,
+and she's willing to be as self-sacrificing as the day is long to make it up
+to me. I wish she wasn't so grateful; there's no occasion for it.  I don't
+want her to feel that every pleasant word and every nice act is so much toward
+paying a debt.  If there was any balance in my favor it was squared up long
+ago, and I was willing to call it even from the start.  She's made me like her
+for her own sake and not on account of what she does for me, and that's what I
+had in mind.  But she's my superior in every way; she's growing to be a pretty
+as a picture, and I suppose I appear like a rather rough customer.  Well, I
+can't help if, but it rather goes against me to have her think, 'I've married
+him and I'm going to do my duty by him, just as I agreed.'  She'll do her duty
+by this Jane in the same self-sacrificing spirit, and will try to make it
+pleasant for the child just because it's right and because she herself was
+taken out of trouble.  That's the shape her religion takes.  'Tisn't a common
+form, I know--this returning good for good with compound interest.  But her
+conscience won't let her rest unless she does everything she can for me, and
+now she'll begin to do everything for Jane because she feels that
+self-sacrifice is a duty.  Anybody can be self-sacrificing.  If I made up my
+mind, I could ask Mrs. Mumpson to visit us all summer, but I couldn't like her
+to save my life, and I don't suppose Alida can like me, beyond a certain
+point, to save her life.  But she'll do her duty.  She'll be pleasant and
+self-sacrificing and do all the work she can lay her hands on for my sake; but
+when it comes to feeling toward me as I can't help feeling toward her--that
+wasn't in the bargain," and he startled Jane with a sudden bitter laugh.
+
+"Say," said the child, as if bent on adding another poignant reflection, "if
+you hadn't married her, I could 'a' come and cooked for you."
+
+"You think I'd been better off if I'd waited for you, eh?"
+
+"You kinder looked as if yer thought so."
+
+He now made the hills echo with a laugh, excited both by his bitter fancies
+and the preposterous idea.  She looked at him inquiringly and was much
+perplexed by his unwonted behavior.  Indeed, he was slightly astonished at his
+own strange mood, but he yielded to it almost recklessly. "I say, Jane," he
+began, "I'm not a very good-looking man, am I?"
+
+She shook her head in emphatic agreement.
+
+"I'm old and rough and hard-featured?"
+
+Again she nodded approvingly.
+
+"Children and some others speak the truth," he growled.
+
+"I never had no teachin', but I'm not a fool," remarked Jane keenly.
+
+"I guess I'm the fool in this case," he added.
+
+"It don't make no difference to me," she said sympathetically. "I'm goin' to
+mind you and not her.  If you ever send her away I'll cook for you."
+
+"Send her away!" exclaimed the farmer, with a shiver. "God forbid!  There,
+don't talk any more!"
+
+For the next half mile he drove in silence, with a heavy frown on his face;
+then he broke out sternly, "If you don't promise to mind Mrs. Holcroft and
+please her in everything, I'll leave you at the poorhouse door and drive home
+again."
+
+"'Course I will, if you tells me to," said the child in trepidation.
+
+"Well, I DO.  People will find that making her trouble is the surest way of
+making themselves trouble."
+
+"She's got some hold on 'im," concluded Jane, who, in listening to much
+gossip, had often heard this expression, and now made a practical application
+of the idea.
+
+Watterly was greatly relieved when he saw Holcroft drive up with the fugitive.
+"I was just going out to your place," he said, "for the girl's mother insisted
+that you had enticed the child away," and the man laughed, as if the idea
+tickled him immensely.
+
+Holcroft frowned, for he was in no mood for his friend's rough jests. "Go to
+your mother till I send for you," he said to Jane.
+
+"The fact that you had taken two other females from the house gave some color
+to Mrs. Mumpson's views," pursued Watterly, who could take only the broadest
+hint as to his social conduct.
+
+He received one now. "Tom Watterly," said the farmer sternly, "did I ever
+insult your wife?"
+
+"By jocks!  No, you nor no other man.  I should say not."
+
+"Well, then, don't you insult mine.  Before I'd seen Mrs. Holcroft, you told
+me she was out of the common run,--how much out, you little know,--and I don't
+want her mixed up with the common run, even in your thoughts."
+
+"Well, now, I like that," said Watterly, giving Holcroft his hand. "You know I
+didn't mean any offense, Jim.  It was only one of my foolish jokes.  You were
+mighty slow to promise to love, honor, and obey, but hanged if you aint more
+on that line than any man in town.  I can see she's turning out well and
+keeping her agreement."
+
+"Yes, that's just what she's doing," said the farmer gloomily. "She's a good,
+capable woman that'll sacrifice herself to her duty any day.  But it wasn't to
+talk about her I came.  She's a sight better than I am, but she's probably not
+good enough for anybody in this town to speak to."
+
+"Oh, pshaw;  now, Jim!"
+
+"Well, I've come on disagreeable business.  I didn't know that Mrs. Mumpson
+and her child were here, and I wish to the Lord they could both stay here! 
+You've found out what the mother is, I suppose?"
+
+"I should say so," replied Tom, laughing. "She's talked several of the old
+women to death already.  The first day she was here she called on my wife and
+claimed social relations, because she's so 'respecterbly connected,' as she
+says.  I thought Angy'd have a fit.  Her respectable connections have got to
+take her off my hands."
+
+"I'm not one of 'em, thank goodness!" resumed Holcroft. "But I'm willing to
+take the girl and give her a chance--at least I'll do it," he corrected
+himself, in his strict observance of truth. "You can see she's not a child to
+dote on, but I was sorry for her when I sent her mother away and said I'd try
+and do something for her.  The first thing I knew she was at the house,
+begging me to either take her in or kill her.  I couldn't say no, though I
+wanted to.  Now, you see what kind of a good Samaritan I am."
+
+"Oh, I know you!  You'd hit a man between the eyes if he charged you with
+doing a good deed.  But what does your wife say to adopting such a cherub?"
+
+"We're not going to adopt her or bind ourselves.  My wife took the child's
+part and plead with me in her behalf, though I could see the young one almost
+made her sick.  She thinks it's her duty, you know, and that's enough for
+her."
+
+"By jocks, Holcroft!  She don't feel that way about you, does she?"
+
+"Why shouldn't she?"
+
+"Why should she?  I can take about anything from Angy, but it wouldn't do for
+her to let me see that she disliked me so that I kinder made her sick."
+
+"Oh, thunder, Tom!  You're getting a wrong impression.  I was never treated
+better by anybody in my life than by Mrs. Holcroft. She's a lady, every inch
+of her.  But there's no reason why she should dote on an old fellow like me."
+
+"Yes, there is.  I have my opinion of a woman who wouldn't dote on a man
+that's been such a friend as you have."
+
+"Oh, hang it all, Tom!  Let's talk about business.  She's too grateful--that's
+what worries me.  By the way she took hold and filled the house with comfort
+she made everything even from the start.  She's been as good a friend to me as
+I to her.  She's done all she agreed and more, and I'll never hear a word
+against her.  The point I've been trying to get at is this: If Mrs. Mumpson
+will agree never to come near us or make trouble in any way, we'll take the
+child.  If she won't so agree, I'll have nothing to do with the girl.  I don't
+want to see her mother, and you'd do me one of the kindest turns you ever did
+a man by stating the case to her."
+
+"If I do," said Watterly, laughing, "you'll have to forgive me everything in
+the past and the future."
+
+"I will, Tom, for I'd rather have an eye tooth pulled than face that woman. 
+We're all right--just as we used to be at school, always half quarreling, yet
+ready to stand up for each other to the last drop.  But I must have her
+promise in black and white."
+
+"Well, come to my office and we'll try to arrange it.  The law is on your
+side, for the county won't support people that anyone will take off its hands. 
+Besides I'm going to shame the woman's relations into taking her away, and
+they'll be glad there's one less to support."
+
+They drew up a brief, strong agreement, and Watterly took it to the widow to
+sign.  He found her in great excitement and Jane looking at her defiantly. "I
+told you he was the one who enticed away my offspring," she began, almost
+hysterically. "He's a cold-blooded villain!  If there's a law in the land,
+I'll--"
+
+"Stop!" thundered Watterly.  His voice was so high and authoritative that she
+did stop, and with open mouth stared at the superintendent. "Now, be quiet and
+listen to me," he continued. "Either you are a sane woman and can stop this
+foolishness, or else you are insane and must be treated as such.  You have
+your choice.  You can't tell me anything about Holcroft; I've known him since
+he was a boy.  He doesn't want your girl.  She ran away to him, didn't you?"
+to Jane, who nodded. "But he's willing to take her, to teach her something and
+give her a chance.  His motive is pure kindness, and he has a good wife
+who'll--"
+
+"I see it all," cried the widow, tragically clasping her hands. "It's his
+wife's doings!  She wishes to triumph over me, and even to usurp my place in
+ministering to my child.  Was there ever such an outrage?  Such a bold,
+vindictive female--"
+
+Here Jane, in a paroxysm of indignant protest, seized her mother and began to
+shake her so violently that she could not speak.
+
+"Stop that!" said Watterly, repressing laughter with difficulty. "I see you
+are insane and the law will have to step in and take care of you both."
+
+"What will it do with us?" gasped the widow.
+
+"Well, it ought to put you in strait jackets to begin with--"
+
+"I've got some sense if mother aint!" cried Jane, commencing to sob.
+
+"It's plain the law'll decide your mother's not fit to take care of you. 
+Anyone who can even imagine such silly ridiculous things as she's just said
+must be looked after.  You MAY take a notion, Mrs. Mumpson, that I'm a
+murderer or a giraffe.  It would be just as sensible as your other talk."
+
+"What does Mr. Holcroft offer?" said the widow, cooling off rapidly.  If there
+was an atom of common sense left in any of his pauper charges, Watterly soon
+brought it into play, and his vague threatenings of law were always
+awe-inspiring.
+
+"He makes a very kind offer that you would jump at if you had sense--a good
+home for your child.  You ought to know she can't stay here and live on
+charity if anyone is willing to take her."
+
+"Of course I would be permitted to visit my child from time to time?  He
+couldn't be so monstrously hard-hearted as--"
+
+"Oh, nonsense!" cried Watterly impatiently. "The idea of his letting you come
+to his house after what you've said about him!  I've no time to waste in
+foolishness, or he either.  He will let Jane visit you, but you are to sign
+this paper and keep the agreement not to go near him or make any trouble
+whatever."
+
+"It's an abominable--"
+
+"Tut!  Tut!  That kind of talk isn't allowed here.  If you can't decide like a
+sane woman the law'll soon decide for you."
+
+As was always the case when Mrs. Mumpson reached the inevitable, she yielded;
+the paper was signed, and Jane, who had already made up her small bundle,
+nodded triumphantly to her mother and followed Watterly.  Mrs. Mumpson, on
+tiptoe, followed also, bent on either propitiating Holcroft and so preparing
+the way for a visit, or else on giving him once more a "piece of her mind."
+
+"All right, Holcroft!" said Watterly, as he entered the office, "here's the
+paper signed.  Was there ever such an id-----"
+
+"Oh, how do you do, Mr. Holcroft?" cried the widow, bursting in and rushing
+forward with extended hand.
+
+The farmer turned away and looked as if made of stone.
+
+Changing her tactics instantly, she put her handkerchief to her eyes and
+moaned, "You never can have the heart to say I can't come and see my child. 
+I've signed writings, 'tis true, under threats and compulsions; but I trust
+there will be relentings--"
+
+"There won't be one relent!" cried Jane. "I never want to see you again, and a
+blind post could see that he doesn't."
+
+"Jane," said Holcroft sternly, "don't speak so again.  If strangers can be
+kind and patient with you, you can be so with your mother.  She has no claims
+on me and has said things which make it impossible for me to speak to her
+again, but I shall insist on your visiting and treating her kindly.  Goodbye,
+Watterly.  You've proved yourself a friend again," and he went rapidly away,
+followed by Jane.
+
+Mrs. Mumpson was so taken aback by Holcroft's final words and Watterly's stern
+manner as he said, "This is my office," that for once in her life she
+disappeared silently.
+
+Holcroft soon purchased the articles on his list, meanwhile racking his brains
+to think of something that he could buy for Alida, but the fear of being
+thought sentimental and of appearing to seek a personal regard for himself,
+not "nominated in the bond," restrained him.
+
+On his way home he was again sunk in deep abstraction, but the bitterness of
+his feeling had passed away.  Although as mistaken as before in his
+apprehension of Alida, his thoughts were kinder and juster. "I've no right to
+find fault or complain," he said to himself. "She's done all I asked and
+better than she agreed, and there's no one to blame if she can't do more.  It
+must have been plain enough to her at first that I didn't want anything but a
+housekeeper--a quiet, friendly body that would look after the house and dairy,
+and she's done better than I even hoped.  That's just the trouble; she's
+turned out so different from what I expected, and looks so different from what
+she did, that I'm just sort of carried away.  I'd give half the farm if she
+was sitting by my side this June evening and I could tell her all I feel and
+know she was glad.  I must be just and fair to her.  I asked her to agree to
+one thing and now I'm beginning to want a tremendous sight more--I want her to
+like not only her home and work and the quiet life she so longed for, but I
+want her to like me, to enjoy my society, not only in a friendly, businesslike
+way, but in another way--yes, confound my slow wits!  Somewhat as if she was
+my wife in reality and not merely in name, as I insisted.  It's mighty mean
+business in me, who have been so proud of standing up to my agreements and so
+exacting of others to do the same.  I went away cold and stiff this afternoon
+because she wasn't silly and sentimental when I was.  I'm to her an
+unpolished, homely, middle-aged man, and yet I sort of scoffed at the
+self-sacrifice which has led her to be pleasant and companionable in every way
+that her feelings allowed.  I wish I were younger and better looking, so it
+wouldn't all be a sense of duty and gratitude.  Gratitude be hanged!  I don't
+want any more of it.  Well, now, James Holcroft, if you're the square man you
+supposed yourself to be, you'll be just as kind and considerate as you know
+how, and then you'll leave Alida to the quiet, peaceful life to which she
+looked forward when she married you.  The thing for you to do is to go back to
+your first ways after you were married and attend to the farm.  She doesn't
+want you hanging around and looking at her as if she was one of her own
+posies.  That's something she wasn't led to expect and it would be mean enough
+to force it upon her before she shows that she wishes it, and I couldn't
+complain if she NEVER wished it."
+
+During the first hour after Holcroft's departure Alida had been perplexed and
+worried, but her intuitions soon led to hopefulness, and the beauty and peace
+of nature without aided in restoring her serenity.  The more minutely she
+dwelt on Holcroft's words and manner, the more true it seemed that he was
+learning to take an interest in her that was personal and apart from every
+other consideration. "If I am gentle, patient, and faithful," she thought,
+"all will come out right.  He is so true and straightforward that I need have
+no fears."
+
+When he returned and greeted her with what seemed his old, friendly, natural
+manner, and, during a temporary absence of Jane, told her laughingly of the
+Mumpson episode, she was almost completely reassured. "Suppose the widow
+breaks through all restraint and appears as did Jane, what would you do?" he
+asked.
+
+"Whatever you wished," she replied, smiling.
+
+"In other words, what you thought your duty?"
+
+"I suppose that is what one should try to do."
+
+"I guess you are the one that would succeed in doing it, even to Mrs.
+Mumpson," he said, turning hastily away and going to his room.
+
+She was puzzled again. "I'm sure I don't dote on self-sacrifice and hard duty
+any more than he does, but I can't tell him that duty is not hard when it's to
+him."
+
+Jane was given the room over the kitchen which Mrs. Wiggins had occupied, and
+the farmhouse soon adopted her into its quiet routine.  Holcroft's course
+continued to cause Alida a dissatisfaction which she could scarcely define. 
+He was as kind as ever he had been and even more considerate; he not only
+gratified her wishes, but tried to anticipate them, while Jane's complete
+subserviency proved that she had been spoken to very plainly.
+
+One day she missed her spelling lesson for the third time, and Alida told her
+that she must learn it thoroughly before going out.  The child took the book
+reluctantly, yet without a word. "That's a good girl!" said Alida, wishing to
+encourage her. "I was afraid at first you wouldn't mind me so readily."
+
+"He told me to.  He'd fire me out the window if I didn't mind you."
+
+"Oh, no!  I think he's very kind to you."
+
+"Well, he's kind to you, too."
+
+"Yes, he has always been kind to me," said Alida gently and lingeringly, as if
+the thought were pleasant to dwell upon.
+
+"Say," said Jane, yielding to her curiosity, "how did you make him so afraid
+of you when he don't like you?  He didn't like mother, but he wasn't afraid of
+her."
+
+"Why do you think he doesn't like me?" Alida faltered, turning very pale.
+
+"Oh!  'Cause he looked once jest as he did after mother'd been goin' for--"
+
+"There, be still!  You mustn't speak of such things, or talk to me about Mr.
+Holcroft in such a way," and she hastily left the kitchen.  When in the
+solitude of her own room, she gave way to bitter tears. "Is it so plain," she
+thought, "that even this ignorant child sees it?  And the unhappy change began
+the day she came, too.  I can't understand it.  We were so happy before; and
+he seemed to enjoy being near me and talking to me when his work permitted. 
+He used to look into my eyes in a way that made me hope and, indeed, feel
+almost sure.  I receive no more such looks; he seems only trying to do his
+duty by me as he promised at first, and acts as if it were all duty, a mere
+matter of conscience.  Could he have discovered how I felt, and so is taking
+this way to remind me that nothing of the kind was in our agreement?  Well,
+I've no reason to complain; I accepted the relation of my own free will, but
+it's hard, hard indeed for a woman who loves a man with her whole heart and
+soul--and he her husband--to go on meeting him day after day, yet act as if
+she were his mere business partner.  But I can't help myself; my very nature,
+as well as a sense of his rights, prevents me from asking more or even showing
+that I wish for more.  That WOULD be asking for it.  But can it be true that
+he is positively learning to dislike me?  To shrink from me with that strong
+repulsion which women feel toward some men?  Oh!  If that is true, the case is
+hopeless; it would kill me.  Every effort to win him, even the most delicate
+and unobtrusive, would only drive him farther away; the deepest instincts of
+his soul would lead him to withdraw--to shun me.  If this is true, the time
+may come when, so far from my filling his house with comfort, I shall make him
+dread to enter it.  Oh, oh!  My only course is to remember just what I
+promised and he expected when he married me, and live up to that."
+
+Thus husband and wife reached the same, conclusion and were rendered equally
+unhappy.
+
+
+Chapter XXX. Holcroft's Best Hope
+
+When Holcroft came in to dinner that day the view he had adopted was
+confirmed, yet Alida's manner and appearance began to trouble him.  Even to
+his rather slow perception, she did not seem so happy as she had been.  She
+did not meet his eye with her old frank, friendly, and as he had almost hoped,
+affectionate, expression; she seemed merely feverishly anxious to do
+everything and have all as he wished.  Instead of acting with natural ease and
+saying what was in her mind without premeditation, a conscious effort was
+visible and an apparent solicitude that he should be satisfied.  The
+inevitable result was that he was more dissatisfied. "She's doing her best for
+me," he growled, as he went back to his work, "and it begins to look as if it
+might wear her out in time.  Confound it!  Having everything just so isn't of
+much account when a man's heart-hungry.  I'd rather have had one of her old
+smiles and gone without my dinner.  Well, well; how little a man understands
+himself or knows the future!  The day I married her I was in mortal dread lest
+she should care for me too much and want to be affectionate and all that; and
+here I am, discontented and moping because everything has turned out as I then
+wished.  Don't see as I'm to blame, either.  She had no business to grow so
+pretty.  Then she looked like a ghost, but now when the color comes into her
+cheeks, and her blue eyes sparkle, a man would be a stupid clod if he didn't
+look with all his eyes and feel his heart a-thumping.  That she should change
+so wasn't in the bargain; neither was it that she should read aloud in such
+sweet tones that a fellow'd like to listen to the dictionary; nor that she
+should make the house and yard look as they never did before, and, strangest
+of all, open my eyes to the fact that apple trees bear flowers as well as
+pippins.  I can't even go by a wild posy in the lane without thinking she'd
+like it and see in it a sight more than I once could.  I've been taken in, as
+old Jonathan feared," he muttered, following out his fancy with a sort of grim
+humor. "She isn't the woman I thought I was marrying at all, and I aint bound
+by my agreement--not in my thoughts, anyhow.  I'd have been in a nice scrape
+if I'd taken my little affidavit not to think of her or look upon her in any
+other light than that of housekeeper and butter maker.  It's a scary thing,
+this getting married with a single eye to business.  See where I am now! 
+Hanged if I don't believe I'm in love with my wife, and, like a thundering
+fool, I had to warn her against falling in love with me!  Little need of that,
+though.  She hasn't been taken in, for I'm the same old chap she married, and
+I'd be a mighty mean cuss if I went to her and said, 'Here, I want you to do
+twice as much, a hundred-fold as much as you agreed to.'  I'd be a fool, too,
+for she couldn't do it unless something drew her toward me just as I'm drawn
+toward her."
+
+Late in the afternoon he leaned on the handle of his corn plow, and, in the
+consciousness of solitude, said aloud: "Things grow clear if you think of them
+enough, and the Lord knows I don't think of much else any more.  It isn't her
+good qualities which I say over to myself a hundred times a day, or her
+education, or anything of the kind, that draws me; it's she herself.  I like
+her.  Why don't I say love her, and be honest?  Well, it's a fact, and I've
+got to face it.  Here I am, plowing out my corn, and it looks splendid for its
+age.  I thought if I could stay on the old place, and plant and cultivate and
+reap, I'd be more than content, and now I don't seem to care a rap for the
+corn or the farm either, compared with Alida; and I care for her just because
+she is Alida and no one else.  But the other side of this fact has an ugly
+look.  Suppose I'm disagreeable to her!  When she married me she felt like a
+woman drowning; she was ready to take hold of the first hand reached to her
+without knowing much about whose hand it was.  Well, she's had time to find
+out.  She isn't drawn.  Perhaps she feels toward me somewhat as I did toward
+Mrs. Mumpson, and she can't help herself either.  Well, well, the bare thought
+of it makes my heart lead.  What's a man to do?  What can I do but live up to
+my agreement and not torment her any more than I can help with my company? 
+That's the only honest course.  Perhaps she'll get more used to me in time. 
+She might get sick, and then I'd be so kind and watchful that she'd think the
+old fellow wasn't so bad, after all, But I shan't give her the comfort of no
+end of self-sacrifice in trying to be pleasant and sociable.  If she's foolish
+enough to think she's in my debt she can't pay it in that way.  No, sir!  I've
+got to make the most of it now--I'm bound to--but this business marriage will
+never suit me until the white arm I saw in the dairy room is around my neck,
+and she looks in my eyes and says, 'James, I guess I'm ready for a longer
+marriage ceremony.'"
+
+It was a pity that Alida could not have been among the hazelnut bushes near
+and heard him.
+
+He resumed his toil, working late and doggedly.  At supper he was very
+attentive to Alida, but taciturn and preoccupied; and when the meal was over
+he lighted his pipe and strolled out into the moonlight.  She longed to follow
+him, yet felt it to be more impossible than if she were chained to the floor.
+
+And so the days passed; Holcroft striving with the whole force of his will to
+appear absorbed in the farm, and she, with equal effort, to seem occupied and
+contented with her household and dairy duties.  They did everything for each
+other that they could, and yet each thought that the other was acting from a
+sense of obligation, and so all the more sedulously veiled their actual
+thoughts and feelings from each other.  Or course, such mistaken effort only
+led to a more complete misunderstanding.
+
+With people of their simplicity and habit of reticence, little of what was in
+their hearts appeared on the surface.  Neither had time to mope, and their
+mutual duties were in a large measure a support and refuge.  Of these they
+could still speak freely for they pertained to business.  Alida's devotion to
+her work was unfeigned for it seemed now her only avenue of approach to her
+husband.  She watched over the many broods of little chickens with tireless
+vigilance.  If it were yellow gold, she could not have gathered the butter
+from the churn with greater greed.  She kept the house immaculate and sought
+to develop her cooking into a fine art.  She was scrupulous in giving Jane her
+lessons and trying to correct her vernacular and manners, but the presence of
+the child grew to be a heavier cross every day.  She could not blame the girl,
+whose misfortune it was to lead incidentally to the change in Holcroft's
+manner, yet it was impossible not to associate her with the beginning of that
+change.  Jane was making decided improvement, and had Alida been happy and at
+rest this fact would have given much satisfaction in spite of the instinctive
+repugnance which the girl seemed to inspire universally.  Holcroft recognized
+this repugnance and the patient effort to disguise it and be kind.
+
+"Like enough she feels in the same way toward me," he thought, "and is trying
+a sight harder not to show it.  But she seems willing enough to talk business
+and to keep up her interest in the partnership line.  Well, blamed if I
+wouldn't rather talk business to her than love to any other woman!"
+
+So it gradually came about that they had more and more to say to each other on
+matters relating to the farm.  Holcroft showed her the receipts from the
+dairy, and her eyes sparkled as if he had brought jewels home to her.  Then
+she in turn would expatiate on the poultry interests and assure him that there
+were already nearly two hundred little chicks on the place.  One afternoon,
+during a shower, she ventured to beguile him into listening to the greater
+part of one of the agricultural journals, and with much deference made two or
+three suggestions about the farm, which he saw were excellent.  She little
+dreamed that if she were willing to talk of turning the farm upside down and
+inside out, he would have listened with pleasure.
+
+They both began to acquire more serenity and hopefulness, for even this sordid
+business partnership was growing strangely interesting.  The meals grew less
+and less silent, and the farmer would smoke his pipe invitingly near in the
+evening so that she could resume their talk on bucolic subjects without much
+conscious effort, while at the same time, if she did not wish his society, she
+could shun it without discourtesy.  He soon perceived that she needed some
+encouragement to talk even of farm matters; but, having received it, that she
+showed no further reluctance.  He naturally began to console himself with
+business as unstintedly as he dared. "As long as I keep on this tack all seems
+well," he muttered. "She don't act as if I was disagreeable to her, but then
+how can a man tell?  If she thinks it her duty, she'll talk and smile, yet
+shiver at the very thought of my touching her.  Well, well, time will show. 
+We seem to be getting more sociable, anyhow."
+
+They both recognized this fact and tried to disguise it and to relieve
+themselves from the appearance of making any undue advances by greater
+formality of address.  In Jane's presence he had formed the habit of speaking
+to his wife as Mrs. Holcroft, and now he was invariably "Mr."
+
+One evening in the latter part of June, he remarked at supper, "I must give
+half a day to hoeing the garden tomorrow.  I've been so busy working out the
+corn and potatoes that it seems an age since I've been in the garden."
+
+"She and me," began Jane, "I mean Mrs. Holcroft and I, have been in the
+garden."
+
+"That's right, Jane, You're coming on.  I think your improved talk and manners
+do Mrs. Holcroft much credit.  I'd like to take some lessons myself."  Then,
+as if a little alarmed at his words, he hastened to ask, "What have you been
+doing in the garden?"
+
+"You'll see when you go there," replied Jane, her small eyes twinkling with
+the rudiments of fun.
+
+Holcroft looked at the child as if he had not seen her for some time either. 
+Her hair was neatly combed, braided, and tied with a blue ribbon instead of a
+string, her gown was as becoming as any dress could be to her, her little
+brown hands were clean, and they no longer managed the knife and fork in an
+ill-bred manner.  The very expression of the child's face was changing, and
+now that it was lighted up with mirth at the little surprise awaiting him, it
+had at least attained the negative grace of being no longer repulsive.  He
+sighed involuntarily as he turned away. "Just see what she's doing for that
+child that I once thought hideous!  How much she might do for me if she cared
+as I do!"
+
+He rose from the table, lighted his pipe, and went out to the doorstep.  Alida
+looked at him wistfully. "He stood there with me once and faced a mob of men,"
+she thought. "Then he put his arm around me.  I would face almost any danger
+for even such a caress again."  The memory of that hour lent her unwonted
+courage, and she approached him timidly and said, "Perhaps you would like to
+go and look at the garden?  Jane and I may not have done everything right."
+
+"Why, certainly.  I forgot about the garden; but then you'll have to go with
+me if I'm to tell you."
+
+"I don't mind," she said, leading the way.
+
+The June sun was low in the west and the air had become deliciously cool and
+fragrant.  The old rosebushes were in bloom, and as she passed she picked a
+bud and fastened it on her bosom.  Wood thrushes, orioles, and the whole
+chorus of birds were in full song: limpid rills of melody from the meadow
+larks flowed from the fields, and the whistling of the quails added to the
+harmony.
+
+Holcroft was in a mood of which he had never been conscious before.  These
+familiar sounds, which had been unheeded so much of his life, now affected him
+strangely, creating an immeasurable sadness and longing.  It seemed as if
+perceptions which were like new senses were awakening in his mind.  The world
+was full of wonderful beauty before unrecognized, and the woman who walked
+lightly and gracefully at his side was the crown of it all.  He himself was so
+old, plain, and unworthy in contrast.  His heart ached with a positive,
+definite pain that he was not younger, handsomer, and better equipped to win
+the love of his wife.  As she stood in the garden, wearing the rose, her neat
+dress outlining her graceful form, the level rays of the sun lighting up her
+face and turning her hair to gold, he felt that he had never seen or imagined
+such a woman before.  She was in harmony with the June evening and a part of
+it, while he, in his working clothes, his rugged, sun-browned features and
+hair tinged with gray, was a blot upon the scene.  She who was so lovely, must
+be conscious of his rude, clownish appearance.  He would have faced any man
+living and held his own on the simple basis of his manhood.  Anything like
+scorn, although veiled, on Alida's part, would have touched his pride and
+steeled his will, but the words and manner of this gentle woman who tried to
+act as if blind to all that he was in contrast with herself, to show him
+deference, kindness, and good will when perhaps she felt toward him somewhat
+as she did toward Jane, overwhelmed him with humility and grief.  It is the
+essence of deep, unselfish love to depreciate itself and exalt its object. 
+There was a superiority in Alida which Holcroft was learning to recognize more
+clearly every day, and he had not a trace of vanity to sustain him.  Now he
+was in a mood to wrong and undervalue himself without limit.
+
+She showed him how much she and Jane had accomplished, how neat and clean they
+had kept the rows of growing vegetables, and how good the promise was for an
+indefinite number of dinners, but she only added to the farmer's depression. 
+He was in no mood for onions, parsnips, and their vegetable kin, yet thought,
+"She thinks I'm only capable of being interested in such things, and I've been
+at much pains to give that impression.  She picked that rose for HERSELF, and
+now she's showing ME how soon we may hope to have summer cabbage and squash. 
+She thus shows that she knows the difference between us and that always must
+be between us, I fear.  She is so near in our daily life, yet how can I ever
+get any nearer?  As I feel now, it seems impossible."
+
+She had quickly observed his depressed, abstracted manner, but misinterpreted
+the causes.  Her own face clouded and grew troubled.  Perhaps she was
+revealing too much of her heart, although seeking to disguise it so
+sedulously, and he was penetrating her motives for doing so much in the garden
+and in luring him thither now.  He was not showing much practical interest in
+beans and beets, and was evidently oppressed and ill at ease.
+
+"I hope we have done things right?" she ventured, turning away to hide tears
+of disappointment.
+
+"Her self-sacrifice is giving out," he thought bitterly.  "She finds she can
+scarcely look at me as I now appear in contrast with this June evening.  Well,
+I don't blame her.  It makes me almost sick when I think of myself and I won't
+be brute enough to say a harsh word to her. "You have done it all far better
+than I could," he said emphatically. "I would not have believed it if you
+hadn't shown me.  The trouble is, you are trying to do too much.  I--I think
+I'll take a walk."
+
+In fact, he had reached the limit of endurance; he could not look upon her
+another moment as she appeared that evening and feel that she associated him
+chiefly with crops and business, and that all her grateful good will could not
+prevent his personality from being disagreeable.  He must carry his bitterness
+whither no eye could see him, and as he turned, his self-disgust led him to
+whirl away his pipe.  It struck a tree and fell shattered at its foot.  Alida
+had never seen him do anything of the kind before, and it indicated that he
+was passing beyond the limits of patience. "Oh, oh," she sobbed, "I fear we
+are going to drift apart!  If he can't endure to talk with me about such
+things, what chance have I at all?  I hoped that the hour, the beauty of the
+evening, and the evidence that I had been trying so hard to please him would
+make him more like what he used to be before he seemed to take a dislike. 
+There's only one way to account for it all--he sees how I feel and he doesn't
+like it.  My very love sets him against me.  My heart was overflowing tonight. 
+How could I help it, as I remembered how he stood up for me?  He was brave and
+kind; he meant well by me, he means well now; but he can't help his feelings. 
+He has gone away now to think of the woman that he did love and loves still,
+and it angers him that I should think of taking her place.  He loved her as a
+child and girl and woman--he told me so; he warned me and said he could not
+help thinking of her.  If I had not learned to love him so deeply and
+passionately and show it in spite of myself, time would gradually have
+softened the past and all might have gone well.  Yet how could I help it when
+he saved me from so much?  I feel tonight, though, that I only escaped one
+kind of trouble to meet another almost as bad and which may become worse."
+
+She strolled to the farther end of the garden that she might become calm
+before meeting Jane's scrutiny.  Useless precaution!  For the girl had been
+watching them both.  Her motive had not been unmixed curiosity, since, having
+taken some part in the garden work, she had wished to witness Holcroft's
+pleasure and hear his praises.  Since the actors in the scene so misunderstood
+each other, she certainly would not rightly interpret them. "She's losin' her
+hold on 'im," she thought, "He acted just as if she was mother."
+
+When Jane saw Alida coming toward the house she whisked from the concealing
+shrubbery to the kitchen again and was stolidly washing the dishes when her
+mistress entered. "You are slow tonight," said Alida, looking at the child
+keenly, but the impassive face revealed nothing.  She set about helping the
+girl, feeling it would be a relief to keep her hands busy.
+
+Jane's efforts to comfort were always maladroit, yet the apparent situation so
+interested her that she yielded to her inclination to talk. "Say," she began,
+and Alida was too dejected and weary to correct the child's vernacular, "Mr.
+Holcroft's got somethin' on his mind."
+
+"Well, that's not strange."
+
+"No, s'pose not.  Hate to see 'im look so, though.  He always used to look so
+when mother went for 'im and hung around 'im.  At last he cleared mother out,
+and just before he looked as black as he did when he passed the house while
+ago.  You're good to me, an' I'd like you to stay.  'Fi's you I'd leave 'im
+alone."
+
+"Jane," said Alida coldly, "I don't wish you ever to speak to me of such
+things again," and she hastily left the room.
+
+"Oh, well!" muttered Jane, "I've got eyes in my head.  If you're goin' to be
+foolish, like mother, and keep a-goin' for 'im, it's your lookout.  I kin get
+along with him and he with me, and I'M goin' to stay."
+
+Holcroft strode rapidly up the lane to the deep solitude at the edge of his
+woodland.  Beneath him lay the farm and the home that he had married to keep,
+yet now, without a second's hesitation, he would part with all to call his
+wife WIFE.  How little the name now satisfied him, without the sweet realities
+of which the word is significant!  The term and relation had become a mocking
+mirage.  He almost cursed himself that he had exulted over his increasing bank
+account and general prosperity, and had complacently assured himself that she
+was doing just what he had asked, without any sentimental nonsense. "How could
+I expect it to turn out otherwise?" he thought. "From the first I made her
+think I hadn't a soul for anything but crops and money.  Now that she's
+getting over her trouble and away from it, she's more able to see just what I
+am, or at least what she naturally thinks I am.  But she doesn't understand
+me--I scarcely understand myself. I long to be a different man in every way,
+and not to work and live like an ox.  Here are some of my crops almost ready
+to gather and they never were better, yet I've no heart for the work.  Seems
+to me it'll wear me out if I have to carry this load of trouble all the time. 
+I thought my old burdens hard to bear; I thought I was lonely before, but it
+was nothing compared with living near one you love, but from whom you are cut
+off by something you can't see, yet must feel to the bottom of your heart."
+
+His distraught eyes rested on the church spire, fading in the twilight, and
+the little adjoining graveyard. "Oh, Bessie," he groaned, "why did you die?  I
+was good enough for YOU.  Oh!  That all had gone on as it was and I had never
+known--"
+
+He stopped, shook his head, and was silent.  At last he signed, "I DID love
+Bessie.  I love and respect her memory as much as ever.  But somehow I never
+felt as I do now.  All was quiet and matter-of-fact in those days, yet it was
+real and satisfying.  I was content to live on, one day like another, to the
+end of my days.  If I hadn't been so content it would be better for me now.
+
+I'd have a better chance if I had read more, thought more, and fitted myself
+to be more of a companion for a woman like Alida.  If I knew a great deal and
+could talk well, she might forget I'm old and homely.  Bessie was so true a
+friend that she would wish, if she knows, what I wish.  I thought I needed a
+housekeeper; I find I need more than all else such a wife as Alida could
+be--one that could help me to be a man instead of a drudge, a Christian
+instead of a discontented and uneasy unbeliever.  At one time, it seemed that
+she was leading me along so naturally and pleasantly that I never was so
+happy; then all at once it came to me that she was doing it from gratitude and
+a sense of duty, and the duty grows harder for her every day.  Well, there
+seems nothing for it now but to go on as we began and hope that the future
+will bring us more in sympathy."
+
+
+Chapter XXXI. "Never!"
+
+For the next two or three days Jane had no occasion to observe that Alida was
+in the least degree obtrusive in her attention to the farmer.  She was
+assiduous in her work and more diligent than ever in her conscious efforts to
+do what she thought he wished; but she was growing pale, constrained, and
+silent.  She struggled heroically to appear as at first, but without much
+success, for she could not rally from the wound he had given her so
+unintentionally and which Jane's words had deepened.  She almost loathed
+herself under her association with Mrs. Mumpson, and her morbid thoughts had
+hit upon a worse reason for Holcroft's apparent repulsion.  As she questioned
+everything in the sleepless hours that followed the interview in the garden,
+she came to the miserable conclusion that he had discovered her love, and that
+by suggestion, natural to his mind, it reminded him of her pitiful story.  He
+could be sorry for her and be kind; he could even be her honest friend and
+protector as a wronged and unhappy woman, but he could not love one with a
+history like hers and did not wish her to love him.  This seemed an adequate
+explanation of the change in their relations, but she felt that it was one
+under which her life would wither and her heart break.
+
+This promised to be worse than what she had dreaded at the almshouse--the
+facing the world alone and working till she died among strangers.  The fact
+that they were strangers would enable her to see their averted faces with
+comparative indifference, but that the man to whom she had yielded her whole
+heart should turn away was intolerable.  She felt that he could not do this
+willingly but only under the imperious instincts of his nature--that he was
+virtually helpless in the matter.  There was an element in these thoughts
+which stung her woman's soul, and, as we have said, she could not rally.
+
+Holcroft never suspected her morbid thoughts, and his loyal, loving heart was
+incapable of dreaming of them.  He only grew more unhappy as he saw the
+changes in her, for he regarded himself as the cause.  Yet he was perplexed
+and unable to account for her rapidly increasing pallor while he continued so
+kind, considerate, and especially so unobtrusive.  He assuredly thought he was
+showing a disposition to give her all the time she wished to become reconciled
+to her lot. "Thunder!" he said to himself, "we can't grow old together without
+getting used to each other."
+
+On Saturday noon, at dinner, he remarked, "I shall have to begin haying on
+Monday and so I'll take everything to town this afternoon, for I won't be able
+to go again for some days.  Is there anything you'd like me to get, Mrs.
+Holcroft?"
+
+She shook her head. "I don't need anything," she replied.  He looked at her
+downcast face with troubled eyes and shivered. "She looks as if she were going
+to be sick," he thought. "Good Lord!  I feel as if there was nothing but
+trouble ahead.  Every mouthful I take seems to choke me."
+
+A little later he pushed away almost untasted a piece of delicious cherry pie,
+the first of the season.  Alida could scarcely keep the tears back as she
+thought, "There was a time when he would have praised it without stint.  I
+took so much pains with it in the hope he'd notice, for he once said he was
+very fond of it."  Such were the straws that were indicating the deep, dark
+currents.
+
+As he rose, she said almost apathetically in her dejection, "Mr. Holcroft,
+Jane and I picked a basket of the early cherries.  You may as well sell them,
+for there are plenty left on the tree for us."
+
+"That was too much for you to do in the hot sun. Well, I'll sell 'em and add
+what they bring to your egg money in the bank.  You'll get rich," he
+continued, trying to smile, "if you don't spend more."
+
+"I don't wish to spend anything," she said, turning away with the thought,
+"How can he think I want finery when my heart is breaking?"
+
+Holcroft drove away, looking and feeling as if he were going to a funeral.  At
+last he broke out, "I can't stand this another day.  Tomorrow's Sunday, and
+I'll manage to send Jane somewhere or take Alida out to walk and tell her the
+whole truth.  She shall be made to see that I can't help myself and that I'm
+willing to do anything she wishes.  She's married to me and has got to make
+the best of it, and I'm sure I'm willing to make it as easy as I can."
+
+Jane was a little perplexed at the condition of affairs.  Mrs. Holcroft had
+left her husband alone as far as possible, as she had advised, but apparently
+it had not helped matters much.  But she believed that the trouble she had
+witnessed bode her no ill and so was inclined to regard it philosophically.
+"He looks almost as glum, when he's goin' round alone, as if he'd married
+mother.  She talked too much, and that didn't please him; this one talks less
+and less, and he don't seem pleased, nuther, but it seems to me he's very
+foolish to be so fault-findin' when she does everything for him top-notch.  I
+never lived so well in my life, nor he, nuther, I believe.  He must be in a
+bad way when he couldn't eat that cherry pie."
+
+Alida was so weary and felt so ill that she went to the parlor and lay down
+upon the lounge. "My heart feels as if it were bleeding slowly away," she
+murmured. "If I'm going to be sick the best thing I can do is to die and end
+it all," and she gave way to that deep dejection in which there seems no
+remedy for trouble.
+
+The hours dragged slowly by; Jane finished her household tasks very leisurely,
+then taking a basket, went out to the garden to pick some early peas.  While
+thus engaged, she saw a man coming up the lane.  His manner instantly riveted
+her attention and awakened her curiosity, and she crouched lower behind the
+pea vines for concealment.  All her furtive, watchful instincts were awake,
+and her conscience was clear, too, for certainly she had a right to spy upon a
+stranger.
+
+The man seemed almost as furtive as herself; his eyes were everywhere and his
+step slow and hesitating.  Instead of going directly to the house he
+cautiously entered the barn, and she heard him a little later call Mr.
+Holcroft.  Of course there was no answer, and as if reassured, he approached
+the house, looking here and there on every side, seemingly to see if anyone
+was about.  Jane had associated with men and boys too long to have any
+childlike timidity, and she also had just confidence in her skulking and
+running powers. "After all, he don't want nothin' of me and won't hurt me,"
+she reasoned. "He acts mighty queer though and I'm goin' to hear what he
+says."
+
+The moment he passed the angle of the house she dodged around to its rear and
+stole into the dairy room, being well aware that from this position she could
+overhear words spoken in ordinary conversational tones in the apartment above. 
+She had barely gained her ambush when she heard Alida half shriek, "Henry
+Ferguson!"
+
+It was indeed the man who had deceived her that had stolen upon her solitude. 
+His somewhat stealthy approach had been due to the wish and expectation of
+finding her alone, and he had about convinced himself that she was so by
+exploring the barn and observing the absence of the horses and wagon.  Cunning
+and unscrupulous, it was his plan to appear before the woman who had thought
+herself his wife, without any warning whatever, believing that in the tumult
+of her surprise and shock she would be off her guard and that her old
+affection would reassert itself.  He passed through the kitchen to the parlor
+door.  Alida, in her deep, painful abstraction, did not hear him until he
+stood in the doorway, and, with outstretched arms, breathed her name.  Then,
+as if struck a blow, she had sprung to her feet, half shrieked his name and
+stood panting, regarding him as if he were a specter.
+
+"Your surprise is natural, Alida, dear," he said gently, "but I've a right to
+come to you, for my wife is dead," and he advanced toward her.
+
+"Stand back!" she cried sternly. "You've no right, and never can have."
+
+"Oh, yes, I have!" he replied in a wheedling tone. "Come, come!  Your nerves
+are shaken.  Sit down, for I've much to tell you."
+
+"No, I won't sit down, and I tell you to leave me instantly.  You've no right
+here and I no right to listen to you."
+
+"I can soon prove that you have a better right to listen to me than to anyone
+else.  Were we not married by a minister?"
+
+"Yes, but that made no difference.  You deceived both him and me."
+
+"It made no difference, perhaps, in the eye of the law, while that woman you
+saw was living, but she's dead, as I can easily prove.  How were you married
+to this man Holcroft?"
+
+Alida grew dizzy; everything whirled and grew black before her eyes as she
+sank into a chair.  He came to her and took her hand, but his touch was a most
+effectual restorative.  She threw his hand away and said hoarsely, "Do you--do
+you mean that you have any claim on me?"
+
+"Who has a better claim?" he asked cunningly. "I loved you when I married you
+and I love you now.  Do you think I rested a moment after I was free from the
+woman I detested?  No, indeed; nor did I rest till I found out who took you
+from the almshouse to be his household drudge, not wife.  I've seen the
+justice who aided in the wedding farce, and learned how this man Holcroft made
+him cut down even the ceremony of a civil marriage to one sentence.  It was
+positively heathenish, and he only took you because he couldn't get a decent
+servant to live with him."
+
+"O God!" murmured the stricken woman. "Can such a horrible thing be?"
+
+"So it seems," he resumed, misinterpreting her. "Come now!" he said
+confidently, and sitting down, "Don't look so broken up about it.  Even while
+that woman was living I felt that I was married to you and you only; now that
+I'm free--"
+
+"But I'm not free and don't wish to be."
+
+"Don't be foolish, Alida.  You know this farmer don't care a rap for you.  Own
+up now, does he?"
+
+The answer was a low, half-despairing cry.
+
+"There, I knew it was so.  What else could you expect?  Don't you see I'm your
+true refuge and not this hard-hearted, money-grasping farmer?"
+
+"Stop speaking against him!" she cried. "O God!" she wailed, "can the law give
+this man any claim on me, now his wife is dead?"
+
+"Yes, and one I mean to enforce," he replied doggedly.
+
+"I don't believe she's dead, I don't believe anything you say!  You deceived
+me once.
+
+"I'm not deceiving you now, Alida," he said with much solemnity. "She IS dead. 
+If you were calmer, I have proofs to convince you in these papers.  Here's the
+newspaper, too, containing the notice of her death," and he handed it to her.
+
+She read it with her frightened eyes, and then the paper dropped from her
+half-paralyzed hands to the floor.  She was so unsophisticated, and her brain
+was in such a whirl of confusion and terror, that she was led to believe at
+the moment that he had a legal claim upon her which he could enforce.
+
+"Oh, that Mr. Holcroft were here!" she cried desperately. "He wouldn't deceive
+me; he never deceived me."
+
+"It is well for him that he isn't here," said Ferguson, assuming a dark look.
+
+"What do you mean?" she gasped.
+
+"Come, come, Alida!" he said, smiling reassuringly. "You are frightened and
+nervous, and I don't wish to make you any more so. You know how I would
+naturally regard the man who I feel has my wife; but let us forget about him. 
+Listen to my plan.  All I ask of you is to go with me to some distant place
+where neither of us are known, and--"
+
+"Never!" she interrupted.
+
+"Don't say that," he replied coolly. "Do you think I'm a man to be trifled
+with after what I've been through?"
+
+"You can't compel me to go against my will," and there was an accent of terror
+in her words which made them a question.
+
+He saw his vantage more clearly and said quietly, "I don't want to compel you
+if it can be helped.  You know how true I was to you--"
+
+"No, no!  You deceived me.  I won't believe you now."
+
+"You may have to.  At any rate, you know how fond I was of you, and I tell you
+plainly, I won't give you up now.  This man doesn't love you, nor do you love
+him--"
+
+"I DO love him, I'd die for him!  There now, you know the truth.  You wouldn't
+compel a woman to follow you who shrinks from you in horror, even if you had
+the right.  Although the ceremony was brief it WAS a ceremony; and he was not
+married then, as you were when you deceived me.  He has ever been truth
+itself, and I won't believe you have any rights till he tells me so himself."
+
+"So you shrink from me with horror, do you?" asked Ferguson, rising, his face
+growing black with passion.
+
+"Yes, I do.  Now leave me and let me never see you again."
+
+"And you are going to ask this stupid old farmer about my rights?"
+
+"Yes.  I'll take proof of them from no other, and even if he confirmed your
+words I'd never live with you again.  I would live alone till I died!"
+
+"That's all very foolish high tragedy, but if you're not careful there may be
+some real tragedy.  If you care for this Holcroft, as you say, you had better
+go quietly away with me."
+
+"What do you mean?" she faltered tremblingly.
+
+"I mean I'm a desperate man whom the world has wronged too much already.  You
+know the old saying, 'Beware of the quiet man!'  You know how quiet,
+contented, and happy I was with you, and so I would be again to the end of my
+days.  You are the only one who can save me from becoming a criminal, a
+vagabond, for with you only have I known happiness.  Why should I live or care
+to live?  If this farmer clod keeps you from me, woe betide him!  My one
+object in living will be his destruction.  I shall hate him only as a man
+robbed as I am can hate."
+
+"What would you do?" she could only ask in a horrified whisper.
+
+"I can only tell you that he'd never be safe a moment.  I'm not afraid of him. 
+You see I'm armed," and he showed her a revolver. "He can't quietly keep from
+me what I feel is my own."
+
+"Merciful Heaven!  This is terrible," she gasped.
+
+"Of course it's terrible--I mean it to be so.  You can't order me off as if I
+were a tramp.  Your best course for his safety is to go quietly with me at
+once.  I have a carriage waiting near at hand."
+
+"No, no!  I'd rather die than do that, and though he cannot feel as I do, I
+believe he'd rather die than have me do it."
+
+"Oh, well!  If you think he's so ready to die--"
+
+"No, I don't mean that!  Kill me!  I want to die."
+
+"Why should I kill you?" he asked with a contemptuous laugh. "That wouldn't do
+me a particle of good.  It will be your own fault if anyone is hurt."
+
+"Was ever a woman put in such a cruel position?"
+
+"Oh, yes!  Many and many a time.  As a rule, though, they are too sensible and
+kind-hearted to make so much trouble."
+
+"If you have legal rights, why don't you quietly enforce them instead of
+threatening?"
+
+For a moment he was confused and then said recklessly, "It would come to the
+same thing in the end.  Holcroft would never give you up."
+
+"He'd have to.  I wouldn't stay here a moment if I had no right."
+
+"But you said you would not live with me again?"
+
+"Nor would I.  I'd go back to the poorhouse and die there, for do you think I
+could live after another such experience?  But my mind has grown clearer.  You
+are deceiving me again, and Mr. Holcroft is incapable of deceiving me.  He
+would never have called me his wife unless I was his wife before God and man."
+
+"I'm not deceiving you in regard to one thing!" he said tragically.
+
+"O God, what shall I do?"
+
+"If you won't go with me you must leave him," he replied, believing that, if
+this step were taken, others would follow.
+
+"If I leave him--if I go away and live alone, will you promise to do him no
+harm?"
+
+"I'd have no motive to harm him then, which will be better security than a
+promise.  At the same time I do promise."
+
+"And you will also promise to leave me utterly alone?"
+
+"If I can."
+
+"You must promise never even to tempt me to think of going away.  I'd rather
+you'd shot me than ask it.  I'm not a weak, timid girl.  I'm a broken-hearted
+woman who fears some things far more than death."
+
+"If you have any fears for Holcroft, they are very rational ones."
+
+"It is for his sake that I would act.  I would rather suffer anything and lose
+everything than have harm come to him."
+
+"All I can say is that, if you will leave him completely and finally, I will
+let him alone.  But you must do it promptly.  Everything depends upon this. 
+I'm in too reckless and bitter a mood to be trifled with.  Besides, I've
+plenty of money and could escape from the country in twenty-four hours.  You
+needn't think you can tell this story to Holcroft and that he can protect you
+and himself.  I'm here under an assumed name and have seen no one who knows
+me.  I may have to disappear for a time and be disguised when I come again,
+but I pledge you my word he'll never be safe as long as you are under his
+roof."
+
+"Then I will sacrifice myself for him," she said, pallid even to her lips. "I
+will go away.  But never dream that you can come near me again--you who
+deceived and wronged me, and now, far worse, threaten the man I love."
+
+"We'll see about that," he replied cynically. "At any rate, you will have left
+him."
+
+"Go!" she said imperiously.
+
+"I'll take a kiss first, sweetheart," he said, advancing with a sardonic
+smile.
+
+"Jane!" she shrieked.  He paused, and she saw evidences of alarm.
+
+The girl ran lightly out of the dairy room, where she had been a greedy
+listener to all that had been said, and a moment later appeared in the yard
+before the house. "Yes'm," she answered.
+
+"Be careful now, sir," said Alida sternly. "There's a witness."
+
+"Only a little idiotic-looking girl."
+
+"She's not idiotic, and if you touch me the compact's broken."
+
+"Very well, my time will come.  Remember, you've been warned," and he pulled
+his hat over his eyes and strode away.
+
+"Bah!" said Jane with a snicker, "as if I hadn't seen his ugly mug so I'd know
+it 'mong a thousand."
+
+With a face full of loathing and dread, Alida watched her enemy disappear down
+the lane, and then, half fainting, sank on the lounge.
+
+"Jane!" she called feebly, but there was no answer.
+
+
+Chapter XXXII. Jane Plays Mouse to the Lion
+
+It can well be understood that Jane had no disposition to return to Mrs.
+Holcroft and the humdrum duties of the house.  There opened before her an
+exciting line of action which fully accorded with her nature, and she entered
+upon it at once.  Her first impulse was to follow the man of whom she had
+learned so much.  Not only was she spurred to this course by her curiosity,
+but also by her instinctive loyalty to Holcroft, and, it must be admitted, by
+her own interests.  Poor little Jane had been nurtured in a hard school, and
+had by this time learned the necessity of looking out for herself.  This
+truth, united with her shrewd, matter-of-fact mind, led her to do the most
+sensible thing under the circumstances. "I know a lot now that he'll be glad
+to know, and if I tell him everything he'll keep me always.  The first thing
+he'll want to know is what's become of that threatenin' scamp," and she
+followed Ferguson with the stealth of an Indian.
+
+Ferguson was not only a scamp, but, like most of his class, a coward.  He had
+been bitterly disappointed in his interview with Alida.  As far as his selfish
+nature permitted, he had a genuine affection for her, and he had thought of
+little else besides her evident fondness for him.  He was so devoid of moral
+principle that he could not comprehend a nature like hers, and had scarcely
+believed it possible that she would repulse him so inflexibly.  She had always
+been so gentle, yielding, and subservient to his wishes that he had thought
+that, having been assured of his wife's death, a little persuasion and perhaps
+a few threats would induce her to follow him, for he could not imagine her
+becoming attached to such a man as Holcroft had been described to be.  Her
+uncompromising principle had entered but slightly into his calculations, and
+so, under the spur of anger and selfishness, he had easily entered upon a game
+of bluff  He knew well enough that he had no claim upon Alida, yet it was in
+harmony with his false heart to try to make her think so.  He had no serious
+intention of harming Holcroft--he would be afraid to attempt this--but if he
+could so work on Alida's fears as to induce her to leave her husband, he
+believed that the future would be full of possibilities.  At any rate, he
+would find his revenge in making Alida and Holcroft all the trouble possible. 
+Even in the excitement of the interview, however, he realized that he was
+playing a dangerous game, and when Jane answered so readily to Alida's call he
+was not a little disturbed.  Satisfied that he had accomplished all that he
+could hope for at present, his purpose now was to get back to town unobserved
+and await developments.  He therefore walked rapidly down the lane and pursued
+the road for a short distance until he came to an old, disused lane, leading
+up the hillside into a grove where he had concealed a horse and buggy.  Unless
+there should be necessity, it was his intention to remain in his hiding place
+until after nightfall.
+
+Jane had merely to skirt the bushy hillside higher up, in order to keep
+Ferguson in view and discover the spot in which he was lurking.  Instead of
+returning to the house she kept right on, maintaining a sharp eye on the road
+beneath to make sure that Holcroft did not pass unobserved.  By an extended
+detour, she reached the highway and continued toward town in the hope of
+meeting the farmer.  At last she saw him driving rapidly homeward.  He was
+consumed with anxiety to be at least near to Alida, even if, as he believed,
+he was no longer welcome in her presence.  When Jane stepped out into the road
+he pulled up his horses and stared at her.  She, almost bursting with her
+great secrets, put her finger on her lips and nodded portentously.
+
+"Well, what is it?" he asked, his heart beating quickly.
+
+"I've got a lot to tell yer, but don't want no one to see us."
+
+"About my wife?"
+
+The girl nodded.
+
+"Good God!  Speak then.  Is she sick?" and he sprung out and caught her arm
+with a grip that hurt her.
+
+"Please, sir, I'm doin' all I kin for yer and--and you hurt me."
+
+Holcroft saw the tears coming to her eyes and he released his hold as he said,
+"Forgive me, Jane, I didn't mean to; but for mercy's sake, tell your story."
+
+"It's a long 'un."
+
+"Well, well, give me the gist of it in a word."
+
+"I guess she's goin' to run away."
+
+Holcroft groaned and almost staggered to his horses' heads, then led them to
+the roadside and tied them to a tree.  Sitting down, as if too weak to stand,
+he buried his face in his hands.  He could not bear to have Jane see his
+distress. "Tell your story," he said hoarsely, "quick, for I may have to act
+quickly."
+
+"Guess yer will.  Did yer know she was married?"
+
+"Certainly--to me."
+
+"No, to another man--married by a minister.  He's been there with her."  She
+little foresaw the effect of her words, for the farmer bounded to his feet
+with an oath and sprang to his horses.
+
+"Stop!" cried Jane, tugging at his arm. "If you go rushin' home now, you'll
+show you've got no more sense than mother.  You'll spoil everything.  She aint
+goin' to run away with HIM--she said she wouldn't, though he coaxed and
+threatened to kill yer if she didn't.  'Fi's a man I wouldn't act like a mad
+bull.  I'd find out how to get ahead of t'other man."
+
+"Well," said Holcroft, in a voice that frightened the child, "she said she
+wouldn't run away with this scoundrel--of course not--but you say she's going
+to leave.  She'll meet him somewhere--good God!  But how should you
+understand? Come, let me get home!"
+
+"I understand a sight more'n you do, and you go on so that I can't tell you
+anything.  If you showed sense, you'd be glad I was lookin' out for you so I
+could tell you everything.  What's the good of goin' rampaigin' home when, if
+you'd only listen, you could get even with that scoundrel, as yer call 'im,
+and make all right," and Jane began to cry.
+
+"Oh, thunder!" exclaimed the chafing man, "tell me your story at once, or
+you'll drive me mad.  You don't half know what you're talking about or how
+much your words mean--how should you?  The thing to do is to get home as soon
+as possible."
+
+"You aint no reason to be so mad and glum all the while," cried Jane, smarting
+under a sense of injustice. "Here I'm a-tryin' to do for you, and you'll be
+sorry ernuff if you don't stop and listen.  And she's been a-tryin' to do for
+you all along, and she's been standin' up for you this afternoon, and is goin'
+to run away to save your life."
+
+"Run away to save my life?  Are you crazy?"
+
+"No, but you be," cried the girl, excited and exasperated beyond restraint.
+"If she IS your wife I'd stand up for her and take care of her, since she
+stands up for you so. 'Stead of that, you go round as glum as a thundercloud
+and now want to go ragin' home to her.  Dunno whether she's your wife or not,
+but I DO know she said she loved you and 'ud die for you, and she wouldn't do
+a thing that man asked but go away to save your life."
+
+Holcroft looked at the girl as if dazed. "Said she LOVED me?" he repeated
+slowly.
+
+"Of course!  You knowed that all 'long--anybody could see it--an' you don't
+treat her much better'n you did mother."  Then, with an impatient gesture, she
+asked, "Will you sit down and listen?"
+
+"No, I won't!" he cried, springing toward his horses. "I'll find out if your
+words are true."
+
+"Oh, yes!" said Jane contemptuously; "run right to her to find out somethin'
+as plain as the nose on her face, and run right by the man that was
+threatenin' her and you too."
+
+Wheeling round, he asked, "Where is he?"
+
+"I know, but I won't say 'nuther word till you stop goin' on.  'Fi's a man I'd
+find out what to do 'fore I did anythin'."
+
+Jane had little comprehension of the tempest she had raised in Holcroft's soul
+or its causes, and so was in no mood to make allowances for him.  By this
+time, the first gust of his passion was passing and reason resuming its sway. 
+He paced up and down in the road a moment or two, and then sat down as he
+said, "I don't half understand what you've been talking about and I fear you
+don't.  You've evidently been listening and watching and have got hold of
+something.  Now, I'll be as patient as I can if you'll tell me the whole story
+quickly," and he turned his flushed, quivering face toward her.
+
+"Then I s'pose you'll scold me for listenin' and watchin' that scamp," said
+the girl sullenly.
+
+"No, Jane, not in this case.  Unless your impressions are all mistaken I may
+have to thank you all my life.  I'm not one to forget those who are true to
+me. Now, begin at the beginning and go right through to the end; then I may
+understand better than you can."
+
+Jane did as she was told, and many "says he's" and "says she's" followed in
+her literal narrative.  Holroft again dropped his face into his hands, and
+before she was through, tears of joy trickled through his fingers.  When she
+finished, he arose, turned away, and hastily wiped his eyes, then gave the
+girl his hand as he said, "Thank you, Jane.  You've tried to be a true friend
+to me today.  I'll show you that I don't forget.  I was a fool to get in such
+a rage, but you can't understand and must forgive me.  Come, you see I'm quiet
+now," and he untied the horses and lifted her into his wagon.
+
+"What yer doin' to do?" she asked, as they drove away.
+
+"I'm going to reward you for watching and listening to that scoundrel, but you
+must not watch me or Mrs. Holcroft, or listen to what we say unless we speak
+before you.  If you do, I shall be very angry.  Now, you've only one thing
+more to do and that is, show me where this man is hiding."
+
+"But you won't go near him alone?" inquired Jane in much alarm.
+
+"You must do as I bid you," he replied sternly. "Show me where he's hiding,
+then stay by the wagon and horses."
+
+"But he same as said he'd kill you."
+
+"You have your orders," was his quiet reply.
+
+She looked scared enough, but remained silent until they reached a shaded spot
+on the road, then said, "If you don't want him to see you too soon, better tie
+here.  He's around yonder, in a grove up on the hill."
+
+Holcroft drove to a tree by the side of the highway and again tied his horses,
+then took the whip from the wagon. "Are you afraid to go with me a little way
+and show me just where he is?" he asked.
+
+"No, but you oughtn' ter go."
+
+"Come on, then!  You must mind me if you wish to keep my good will.  I know
+what I'm about."  As in his former encounter, his weapon was again a long,
+tough whipstock with a leather thong attached.  This he cut off and put in his
+pocket, then followed Jane's rapid lead up the hill.  Very soon she said,
+"There's the place I saw 'im in.  If you will go, I'd steal up on him."
+
+"Yes.  You stay here."  She made no reply, but the moment he disappeared she
+was upon his trail.  Her curiosity was much greater than her timidity, and she
+justly reasoned that she had little to fear.
+
+Holcroft approached from a point whence Ferguson was expecting no danger.  The
+latter was lying on the ground, gnawing his nails in vexation, when he first
+heard the farmer's step.  Then he saw a dark-visaged man rushing upon him.  In
+the impulse of his terror, he drew his revolver and fired.  The ball hissed
+near, but did no harm, and before Ferguson could use the weapon again, a blow
+from the whipstock paralyzed his arm and the pistol dropped to the ground.  So
+also did its owner a moment later, under a vindictive rain of blows, until he
+shrieked for mercy.
+
+"Don't move!" said Holcroft sternly, and he picked up the revolver. "So you
+meant to kill me, eh?"
+
+"No, no!  I didn't.  I wouldn't have fired if it hadn't been in self-defense
+and because I hadn't time to think."  He spoke with difficulty, for his mouth
+was bleeding and he was terribly bruised.
+
+"A liar, too!" said the farmer, glowering down upon him. "But I knew that
+before.  What did you mean by your threats to my wife?"
+
+"See here, Mr. Holcroft; I'm down and at your mercy.  If you'll let me off
+I'll go away and never trouble you or your wife again."
+
+"Oh, no!" said Holcroft with a bitter laugh. "You'll never, never trouble us
+again."
+
+"What, do you mean to murder me?" Ferguson half shrieked.
+
+"Would killing such a thing as you be murder?  Any jury in the land would
+acquit me.  You ought to be roasted over a slow fire."
+
+The fellow tried to scramble on his knees, but Holcroft hit him another savage
+blow, and said, "Lie still!"
+
+Ferguson began to wring his hands and beg for mercy.  His captor stood over
+him a moment or two irresolutely in his white-heated anger; then thoughts of
+his wife began to soften him.  He could not go to her with blood on his
+hands--she who had taught him such lessons of forbearance and forgiveness.  He
+put the pistol in his pocket and giving his enemy a kick, said, "Get up!"
+
+The man rose with difficulty.
+
+"I won't waste time in asking any promises from YOU, but if you ever trouble
+my wife or me again, I'll break every bone in your body.  Go, quick, before my
+mood changes, and don't say a word."
+
+As the man tremblingly untied his horse, Jane stepped out before him and said,
+"I'm a little idiotic girl, am I?"
+
+He was too thoroughly cowed to make any reply and drove as rapidly away as the
+ground permitted, guiding his horse with difficulty in his maimed condition.
+
+Jane, in the exuberance of her pleasure, began something like a jig on the
+scene of conflict, and her antics were so ridiculous that Holcroft had to turn
+away to repress a smile. "You didn't mind me, Jane," he said gravely.
+
+"Well, sir," she replied, "after showin' you the way to 'im, you oughter not
+grudge me seein' the fun."
+
+"But it isn't nice for little girls to see such things."
+
+"Never saw anything nicer in my life.  You're the kind of man I believe in,
+you are.  Golly!  Only wished SHE'D seen you.  I've seen many a rough and
+tumble 'mong farm hands, but never anything like this.  It was only his pistol
+I was 'fraid of."
+
+"Will you do exactly what I say now?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Well, go home across the fields and don't by word or manner let Mrs. Holcroft
+know what you've seen or heard, and say nothing about meeting me.  Just make
+her think you know nothing at all and that you only watched the man out of
+sight.  Do this and I'll give you a new dress."
+
+"I'd like somethin' else 'sides that."
+
+"Well, what?"
+
+"I'd like to be sure I could stay right on with you."
+
+"Yes, Jane, after today, as long as you're a good girl.  Now go, for I must
+get back to my team before this scamp goes by."
+
+She darted homeward as the farmer returned to his wagon.  Ferguson soon
+appeared and seemed much startled as he saw his Nemesis again. "I'll keep my
+word," he said, as he drove by.
+
+"You'd better!" called the farmer. "You know what to expect now."
+
+Alida was so prostrated by the shock of the interview that she rallied slowly. 
+At last she saw that it was getting late and that she soon might expect the
+return of her husband.  She dragged herself to the door and again called Jane,
+but the place was evidently deserted.  Evening was coming on tranquilly, with
+all its sweet June sounds, but now every bird song was like a knell.  She sunk
+on the porch seat and looked at the landscape, already so dear and familiar,
+as if she were taking a final farewell of a friend.  Then she turned to the
+homely kitchen to which she had first been brought. "I can do a little more
+for him," she thought, "before I make the last sacrifice which will soon bring
+the end.  I think I could have lived--lived, perhaps, till I was old, if I had
+gone among strangers from the almshouse, but I can't now.  My heart is broken. 
+Now that I've seen that man again I understand why my husband cannot love me. 
+Even the thought of touching me must make him shudder.  But I can't bear up
+under such a load much longer, and that's my comfort.  It's best I should go
+away now; I couldn't do otherwise," and the tragedy went on in her soul as she
+feebly prepared her husband's meal.
+
+At last Jane came in with her basket of peas.  Her face was so impassive as to
+suggest that she had no knowledge of anything except that there had been a
+visitor, and Alida had sunk into such depths of despairing sorrow that she
+scarcely noticed the child.
+
+
+Chapter XXXIII. "Shrink from YOU?"
+
+Holcroft soon came driving slowly up the lane as if nothing unusual was on his
+mind.  Having tied his horses, he brought in an armful of bundles and said
+kindly, "Well, Alida, here I am again, and I guess I've brought enough to last
+well through haying time."
+
+"Yes," she replied with averted face.  This did not trouble him any now, but
+her extreme pallor did and he added, "You don't look well.  I wouldn't mind
+getting much supper tonight.  Let Jane do the work."
+
+"I'd rather do it," she replied.
+
+"Oh, well!" laughing pleasantly, "you shall have your own way.  Who has a
+better right than you, I'd like to know?"
+
+"Don't speak that way," she said, almost harshly, under the tension of her
+feelings. "I--I can't stand it.  Speak and look as you did before you went
+away."
+
+"Jane," said the farmer, "go and gather the eggs."
+
+As soon as they were alone, he began gently, "Alida--"
+
+"Please don't speak so to me today.  I've endured all I can.  I can't keep up
+another minute unless you let things go on as they were.  Tomorrow I'll try to
+tell you all.  It's your right."
+
+"I didn't mean to say anything myself till after supper, and perhaps not till
+tomorrow, but I think I'd better.  It will be better for us both, and our
+minds will be more at rest.  Come with me into the parlor, Alida."
+
+"Well, perhaps the sooner it's over the better," she said faintly and huskily.
+
+She sunk on the lounge and looked at him with such despairing eyes that tears
+came into his own.
+
+"Alida," he began hesitatingly, "after I left you this noon I felt I must
+speak with and be frank with you."
+
+"No, no!!" she cried, with an imploring gesture, "if it must be said, let me
+say it.  I couldn't endure to hear it from you.  Before you went away I
+understood it all, and this afternoon the truth has been burned into my soul. 
+That horrible man has been here--the man I thought my husband--and he has made
+it clearer, if possible.  I don't blame you that you shrink from me as if I
+were a leper.  I feel as if I were one."
+
+"I shrink from YOU!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Yes.  Can you think I haven't seen the repugnance growing in spite of
+yourself?  When I thought of that man--especially when he came today--I
+understood WHY too well.  I cannot stay here any longer.  You'd try to be kind
+and considerate, but I'd know how you felt all the time.  It would not be safe
+for you and it would not be right for me to stay, either, and that settles it. 
+Be--be as kind to me--as you can a few--a few hours longer, and then let me go
+quietly."  Her self-control gave way, and burying her face in her hands, she
+sobbed convulsively.
+
+In a moment he was on his knees beside her, with his arm about her waist.
+"Alida, dear Alida!" he cried, "we've both been in the dark about each other. 
+What I resolved to do, when I started for town, was to tell you that I had
+learned to love you and to throw myself on your mercy.  I thought you saw I
+was loving you and that you couldn't bear to think of such a thing in an old,
+homely fellow like me.  That was all that was in my mind, so help me God!"
+
+"But--but HE'S been here," she faltered; "you don't realize--"
+
+"I don't believe I do or can, yet, Alida, dear, but that blessed Jane's spying
+trait has served me the best turn in the world.  She heard every brave word
+you said and I shed tears of joy when she told me; and tears are slow coming
+to my eyes.  You think I shrink from you, do you?" and he kissed her hands
+passionately. "See," he cried, "I kneel to you in gratitude for all you've
+been to me and are to me."
+
+"Oh, James!  Please rise.  It's too much."
+
+"No, not till you promise to go with me to a minister and hear me promise to
+love, cherish--yes, in your case I'll promise to obey."
+
+She bowed her head upon his shoulder in answer.  Springing up, he clasped her
+close and kissed away her tears as he exclaimed, "No more business marriage
+for me, if you please.  There never was a man so in love with his wife."
+
+Suddenly she looked up and said fearfully, "James, he threatened you.  He said
+you'd never be safe a moment as long as I stayed here."
+
+His answer was a peal of laughter. "I've done more than threaten him.  I've
+whipped him within an inch of his life, and it was the thought of you that led
+me, in my rage, to spare his life.  I'll tell you all--I'm going to tell you
+everything now.  How much trouble I might have saved if I had told you my
+thoughts!  What was there, Alida, in an old fellow like me that led you to
+care so?"
+
+Looking up shyly, she replied, "I think it was the MAN in you--and--then you
+stood up for me so."
+
+"Well, love is blind, I suppose, but it don't seem to me that mine is.  There
+never was a man so taken in at his marriage.  You were so different from what
+I expected that I began loving you before I knew it, but I thought you were
+good to me just as you were to Jane--from a sense of duty--and that you
+couldn't abide me personally.  So I tried to keep out of your way.  And,
+Alida, dear, I thought at first that I was taken by your good traits and your
+education and all that, but I found out at last that I had fallen in love with
+YOU.  Now you know all.  You feel better now, don't you?"
+
+"Yes," she breathed softly.
+
+"You've had enough to wear a saint out," he continued kindly. "Lie down on the
+lounge and I'll bring your supper to you."
+
+"No, please!  It will do me more good to go on and act as if nothing had
+happened."
+
+"Well, have your own way, little wife.  You're boss now, sure enough."
+
+She drew him to the porch, and together they looked upon the June landscape
+which she had regarded with such despairing eyes an hour before.
+
+"Happiness never kills, after all," she said.
+
+"Shouldn't be alive if it did," he replied. "The birds seem to sing as if they
+knew."
+
+Jane emerged from the barn door with a basket of eggs, and Alida sped away to
+meet her.  The first thing the child knew the arms of her mistress were about
+her neck and she was kissed again and again.
+
+"What did you do that for?" she asked.
+
+"You'll understand some day."
+
+"Say," said Jane in an impulse of good will, "if you're only half married to
+Mr. Holcroft, I'd go the whole figure, 'fi's you.  If you'd 'a' seen him
+a-thrashin' that scamp you'd know he's the man to take care of you."
+
+"Yes, Jane, I know.  He'll take care of me always."
+
+The next morning Holcroft and Alida drove to town and went to the church which
+she and her mother used to attend.  After the service they followed the
+clergyman home, where Alida again told him her story, though not without much
+help from the farmer.  After some kindly reproach that she had not brought her
+troubles to him at first, the minister performed a ceremony which found deep
+echoes in both their hearts.
+
+Time and right, sensible living soon remove prejudice from the hearts of the
+good and stop the mouths of the cynical and scandal-loving.  Alida's
+influence, and the farmer's broadening and more unselfish views gradually
+bought him into a better understanding of his faith, and into a kinder
+sympathy and charity for his neighbors than he had ever known.  His relations
+to the society of which he was a part became natural and friendly, and his
+house a pretty and a hospitable home.  Even Mrs. Watterly eventually entered
+its portals.  She and others were compelled to agree with Watterly that Alida
+was not of the "common sort," and that the happiest good fortune which could
+befall any man had come to Holcroft when he fell in love with his wife.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of He Fell In Love With His Wife
+
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