nt to
go out a bit loike other foak. Theer's places i' Riggan as I could go to
wi'out bein' slurred at--theer's other wenches as has done worse nor
me. Ben Maxy towd Mary on'y yesterday as I was the prettiest lass i' th'
place, fur aw their slurs."

"Ben Maxy!" Joan said slowly.

Liz twisted a bit of ribbon around her finger.

"It's not as I care fur what Ben Maxy says or what ony other mon says,
fur th' matter o' that, but--but it shows as I need na be so mich
ashamed o' mysen after aw, an' need na stay i' doors as if I dare na
show my face."

Joan made no answer.

"An' yet," she said, smiling faintly at her own train of thought
afterward, "I dunnot see what I'm complainin' on. Am I out o' patience
because her pain is na deeper? Surely I am na wantin' her to mak' th'
most o' her burden. I mun be a queer wench, tryin' to mak' her happy,
an' then feelin' worrited at her forgettin' her trouble. It's well as
she con let things slip so easy."

But there came times when she could not help being anxious, seeing Liz
gradually drifting out into her old world again. She was so weak, and
pretty, and frivolous, so ready to listen to rough flatteries. Riggan
was more rigid in its criticism than in its morality, and criticism
having died out, offence was forgotten through indifference rather
than through charity. Those who had been hardest upon Liz in her day of
darkness were carelessly ready to take her up again when her fault was
an old story overshadowed by some newer scandal.

Joan found herself left alone with the child oftener than she used
to be, but in truth this was a relief rather than otherwise. She was
accustomed to solitude, and the work of self-culture she had begun
filled her spare hours with occupation.

Since his dismissal from the mines, she saw but little of her father.
Sometimes she saw nothing of him for weeks. The night after he lost
his place, he came into the house, and making up a small bundle of his
personal effects, took a surly leave of the two women.

"I'm goin' on th' tramp a bit," he said. "If yo're axed, yo' con say I'm
gone to look fur a job. My day has na coom yet, but it's on th' way."

Since then he had only returned once or twice, and his visits had always
been brief and unexpected, and at night. The first time he had startled
Joan by dropping in upon her at midnight, his small bundle on his
knob-stick over his shoulder, his clothes bespattered with road-side
mud. He said nothing of