and your
nonsense," he cried, and stamped off.

In Mary's red-rimmed eyes, as she watched him go, determination grew.

It happened that upon the afternoon of that same day Miss Jones
announced that she would take Mary for a walk; then, just as they passed
through the farm gates, Hamlet, rushing out, joined them. He did not
often honour them with his company, despising women most especially when
they walked, but to-day his master was busy digging for worms in the
vegetable garden, and, after a quarter of an hour's contemplation of
this fascinating occupation, he had wandered off in search of a livelier
game. He decided to join Miss Jones; he could do what he pleased, he
could amuse himself with her ineffectual attempts to keep him in order,
and he could irritate Mary; so he danced along, with his tail in the
air, barking at imaginary rats and poking his nose into hedges.

Mary, with a sudden tightened clutching of the heart, realised that
her hour was upon her. She felt so wicked as she realised this that she
wondered that the ground didn't open up and swallow her, as it had done
with those unfortunate people in the Bible. But no, the world was calm.
Little white milky clouds raced in lines and circles across the sky, and
once and again a leaf floated from a tree, hung for a moment
suspended, and then turned slowly to the ground. The hedges were a dark
black-green, high and thick above the dusty road; there had been no rain
for weeks. Truly a stable world. Mary, glaring at Fate, wondered how it
could be so.

Miss Jones, who was happy and optimistic to-day, talked in a tenderly
reminiscent tone of her youth. This vein of reminiscence Mary, on her
normal day, loved. To-day she did not hear a word that Miss Jones said.

"I remember my mother saying so well to my dear brother: 'Do what you
like, my boy. I trust you.' And indeed Alfred was to be trusted if ever
a boy was. It is a remarkable thing, but I cannot remember a single
occasion of dishonesty on Alfred's part. 'A white lie,' he would often
say, 'is a lie, and a lie is a sin--white or black, always a sin'; and
I remember that he would often put mother to a serious inconvenience by
his telling callers that she was in when she had wished it to be said
that she was not at home. He felt it his serious duty, and so he told
Mother. 'Don't ask me to tell a lie, Mother,' I remember his saying. 'I
cannot do it.'"

"Like George Washington," said Mary, suddenly catching th