r he lifted his head, and suddenly retracing his steps, he
came toward her, and, taking her hand again, said forlornly: "You'll see
me back when my luck turns, Nancy."

Nancy knew that the words might mean little or much, according to the
manner in which they were uttered, but to her hurt pride and sore, shamed
woman-instinct, they were a promise, simply because there was a choking
sound in Justin's voice and tears in Justin's eyes. "You'll see me back
when my luck turns, Nancy;" this was the phrase upon which she had lived
for more than ten years. Nancy had once heard the old parson say, ages
ago, that the whole purpose of life was the growth of the soul; that we
eat, sleep, clothe ourselves, work, love, all to give the soul another
day, month, year, in which to develop. She used to wonder if her soul
could be growing in the monotonous round of her dull duties and her
duller pleasures. She did not confess it even to herself; nevertheless
she knew that she worked, ate, slept, to live until Justin's luck turned.
Her love had lain in her heart a bird without a song, year after year.
Her mother had dwelt by her side and never guessed; her father too; and
both were dead. The neighbours also, lynx-eyed and curious, had never
suspected. If she had suffered, no one in Edgewood was any the wiser,
for the maiden heart is not commonly worn on the sleeve in New England.
If she had been openly pledged to Justin Peabody, she could have waited
twice ten years with a decent show of self-respect, for long engagements
were viewed rather as a matter of course in that neighbourhood. The
endless months had gone on since that grey November day when Justin had
said good-bye. It had been just before Thanksgiving, and she went to
church with an aching and ungrateful heart. The parson read from the
eighth chapter of St. Matthew, a most unexpected selection for that
holiday. "If you can't find anything else to be thankful for," he cried,
"go home and be thankful you are not a leper!"

Nancy took the drastic counsel away from the church with her, and it was
many a year before she could manage to add to this slender store anything
to increase her gratitude for mercies given, though all the time she was
outwardly busy, cheerful, and helpful.

Justin had once come back to Edgewood, and it was the bitterest drop in
her cup of bitterness that she was spending that winter in Berwick
(where, so the neighbours told him, she was a great favouri