anyway.

There was Mrs. Berry and her sister, Miss Thornley, and Mrs. Smith.
They had ridden fifteen miles on a load of wheat, and had yet another
fifteen to go to reach their destination. In spite of a long, cold and
very slow ride, the three ladies were in splendid condition, and as
soon as they were thawed out enough to talk, and long before their
teeth stopped chattering, they began to ask about Mrs. Corbett's
neighbor, young Mrs. Brydon, in such a way, that, as Mrs. Corbett
afterwards explained to Da Corbett, "you could tell they had heard
something."

"Our lads saw her over at the Orangemen's ball in Millford, and they
said Rance Belmont was with her more than her own man," said Mrs.
Berry, as she melted the frost from her eyebrows by holding her face
over the stove.

"Oh, well," Mrs. Corbett said, "I guess all the young fellows were
makin' a lot of her, but sure there's no harm in that."

Miss Thornley was too busy examining her feet for possible frostbites
to give in her contribution just then, but after she had put her
coldest foot in a wash-basin of water she said, "I don't see how any
woman can go the length of her toe with Rance Belmont, but young Mrs.
Brydon went to Brandon with him last week, for my sister's husband
heard it from somebody that had seen them. I don't know how she can do
it."

Mrs. Corbett was mashing potatoes with a gem-jar, and without stopping
her work she said: "Oh, well, Miss Thornley, it's easy for you and me
to say we would not go out with Rance Belmont, but maybe that's mostly
because we have never had the chance. He's got a pretty nice way with
him, Rance has, and I guess if he came along now with his sorrel pacer
and says to you, 'Come on, Miss Thornley,' you would get on that boot
and stocking in two jiffies and be off with him like any young girl!"

Miss Thornley mumbled a denial, and an angry light shone in her pale
blue eyes.

Mrs. Smith was also full of the subject, and while she twisted her hair
into a small "nub" about the size, shape and color of a peanut, she
expressed her views.

"It ain't decent for her to be goin' round with Rance Belmont the way
she does, and they say at the dance at Millford she never missed a
dance. Since Rance has got his money from England he hasn't done a
thing but play cards with them twins and take her round. I don't see
how her man can put up with it, but he's an awful easy-goin' chap--just
the kind that wouldn't notice anything wro