ht a' been a pair of scissors, they was that
close together."

"Miss Jane warn't on the beach yesterday afternoon," said Martha in a
positive tone, still in the dark.

"She warn't, warn't she? Well, I guess I know Miss Jane Cobden. She and
Bart was hunched up that close you couldn't get a bodkin 'tween 'em.
She had that red cloak around her and the hood up ever her head. Not
know her, and she within ten feet o' me? Well, I guess I got my eyes
left, ain't I?"

Martha stood stunned. She knew now who it was. She had taken the red
cloak from Lucy's shoulders the evening before. Then a cold chill crept
over her as she remembered the lie Lucy had told--"not a soul on the
beach but Meg and the sandsnipe." For an instant she stood without
answering. But for the window-sill on which her hand rested she would
have betrayed her emotion in the swaying of her body. She tried to
collect her thoughts. To deny Jane's identity too positively would only
make the situation worse. If either one of the sisters were to be
criticised Jane could stand it best.

"You got sharp eyes and ears, Ann Gossaway, nobody will deny you them,
but still I don't think Miss Jane was on the beach yesterday."

"Don't think, don't you? Maybe you think I can't tell a cloak from a
bed blanket, never havin' made one, and maybe ye think I don't know my
own clo'es when I see 'em on folks. I made that red cloak for Miss Jane
two years ago, and I know every stitch in it. Don't you try and teach
Ann Gossaway how to cut and baste or you'll git worsted," and the
gossip looked over her spectacles at Martha and shook her side-curls in
a threatening way.

Miss Gossaway had no love for the old nurse. There had been a time when
Martha "weren't no better'n she oughter be, so everybody said," when
she came to the village, and the dressmaker never let a chance slip to
humiliate the old woman. Martha's open denunciation of the dressmaker's
vinegar tongue had only increased the outspoken dislike each had for
the other. She saw now, to her delight, that the incident which had
seemed to be only a bit of flotsam that had drifted to her shore and
which but from Martha's manner would have been forgotten by her the
next day, might be a fragment detached from some floating family wreck.
Before she could press the matter to an explanation Martha turned
abruptly on her heel, called Meg, and with the single remark, "Well, I
guess Miss Jane's of age," walked quickly across the grass-p