sing to the kitchen door, opened it
without warning. A small untidy woman, the shortcoming of her
appearance partly concealed by the old plaid shawl that enveloped her
person, dodged away from the key-hole with a celerity perhaps due to
practise.

"It just struck me that there was more voices than two," she explained
with self-accusing haste. "And I didn't want to intrude if you was
entertaining company. Sounded to me like Thomas Hardin's voice."

"Yes, it's Mr. Hardin. Will you come in, Mis' Trotter?" Persis'
invitation lacked its usual ring of cordiality.

"Oh, I wouldn't want to intrude. But I says to Bartholomew this very
day, 'I'm going to run over to Persis Dale's after supper,' says I, 'to
see if she can't let me have some pieces of white goods left over from
her dressmaking.' You're doing a good deal in white this time of the
year, as a rule," concluded Mrs. Trotter, a greedy look coming into her
eyes.

"Mis' Trotter, I always send back the pieces, even if they're no bigger
than a handkerchief. If anybody's going to make carpet rags out of the
scraps, I don't know why it shouldn't be the people who bought and paid
for the goods."

"And that's where you're right," Mrs. Trotter agreed, with the
adaptability that was one of her strong points. "There was Mattie
Kendall, now, who kept up her dressmaking after she married Henry
Beach. Well, she set out to dress her children on the left-overs, and
it went all right while they was little. But Mamie got grasping.
After her oldest girl was as long-legged as a colt, she'd send word to
her customers and say that they needed another yard and a half or two
yards to make their dresses in any kind of style. Of course it got out
in time, and everybody who wanted sewing done went to a woman in South
Rivers. I often say to Bartholomew that honesty's the best policy,
even where it looks the other way round."

During the progress of this moral tale, Persis' thoughts had been
self-accusing. She reflected that curiosity is not among the seven
deadly sins, and that if Mrs. Trotter found in listening at key-holes
any compensation for the undeniable hardships of her lot, only a harsh
nature would grudge her such solace. Moreover ingrained in Persis'
disposition, was the inability to hold a grudge against one who asked
her a favor.

"I don't know, Mis' Trotter, but maybe I've got some white pieces of my
own that aren't big enough for anything but baby clothes. I'l