, who--"

The Widow Sprigg held up a shaking hand protesting against this volley
of questions and answering none. But after a little time the woman in
her got the better of the judge, and, rising, she went to the wall
cupboard and took from it a bottle containing brown fluid and plainly
labelled, "Cholera Mixture. Poison." Pouring a generous dose into a
glass, she diluted it with water and was returning to the bed when
Katharine caught her hand to stay it, crying:

"Why, Susanna! How dare you? That's marked poison!"

The widow shook the girl's hand off, calmly replying:

"My suz! I guess I know what I'm about. That 'cholera mixture' 's one
the old doctor's own prescriptions, an' I've give more of it to more
folks 'an you could shake a stick at. It's marked 'poison' so's to keep
childern like you from meddlin' with it. A dose of it won't hurt nobody,
an' if his malady is the sort I cal'late, I'm treatin' him like the Good
Samaritan would on the Sabbath Day. I've made it a powerful dose, an' I
'low it'll settle his hash one way or other. But I hate to touch him. I
certainly do."

A last faint moan issued from the sufferer, and his eyes turned upon the
girl. He looked so wan and so forlorn that her own natural repugnance
left her, and she caught the medicine-glass from Susanna to present it
to the sick man's lips. He opened them and drank obediently, even
smacking his lips over the fiery mixture, and Kate, having finished her
task, hastily withdrew to the outer room.

But what had come over the Widow Sprigg? Her whole manner had changed.
Fear seemed to have left her and a stern determination taken its place.
Katharine could only observe, wondering, as the mistress of the cottage
caught up a pail, and going to the well drew it full several times,
throwing out all but the last pailful, which she brought back into the
house and set on a table in the bedroom. Beside it she placed a dipper,
and observed:

"That water's all right. Moses, he had the well cleaned out for me only
last month. We always do do it twicet a year, lest somebody comes along
an' drinks it stale. More'n that, the well's fed by a spring, runnin' in
an' out, so really don't need any cleanin', but--"

Such solicitude on account of that detested tramp! It was amazing. Yet
her next procedure was even more so. Going up-stairs, she looked that
the window was shut, and the nail, its only fastening, put in above the
lower sash. Anybody inside could have ope