little grave where all
her youth and hope were buried.

The thought gave her courage to speak, though the pale lips struggled
pitifully to frame the words.

"Squire, suppose that when I came to you that day last June you had
been right--I am only saying this for the sake of argument, Squire--but
suppose that I had been a deceived girl, that I had come here to begin
all over again; to live down the injustice, the scandal and all the
other things that unfortunate woman have to live down, would you still
have felt the same?"

"Why, Anna, I never heard you talk like this before; of course I should
have felt the same; if a commandment is broke, it's broke; nothing can
alter that, can it?"

"But, Squire, is there no mercy, no chance held out to the woman who
has been unfortunate?"

"Anna, these arguments don't sound well from a proper behaving young
woman like you. I know it's the fashion nowadays for good women to
talk about mercy to their fallen sisters, but it's a mistake. When a
woman falls, she loses her right to respect, and that's the end of it."

She turned her face to the storm and the softly falling flakes were no
whiter than her face.

As Anna turned to leave the room on some pretext, she saw Kate coming
in with a huge bunch of Jacqueminot roses in her hand. Of course,
Sanderson had sent them. The perfume of them sickened Anna, as the
odor of a charnel house might have done. She tried to smile bravely
at Kate, who smiled back triumphantly as she went in to show her uncle
the flowers. But the sight of them was like the turning of a knife in
a festering wound.

Anna made her way to the kitchen. Dave was sitting there smoking.
Anna found strength and sustenance in his mere presence, though she did
not say a word to him, but he was such a faithful soul. Good, honest
Dave.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE VILLAGE GOSSIP SNIFFS SCANDAL.

"Flavia, most tender of her own good name,
Is rather careless of her sister's fame!
Her superfluity the poor supplies,
But if she touch a character it dies."--_Cowper_.

It was characteristic of Marthy Perkins and her continual pursuit of
pleasure, that she should wade through snowdrifts to Squire Bartlett's
and ask for a lift in his sleigh. The Squire's family were going to a
surprise party to be given to one of the neighbor's, and Marthy was as
determined about going as a debutante.

She came in, covered with snow, hooded, shawled and coated till she