e would sit on the steps. Most likely they would call Lois down,
or come over themselves, for they were the most sociable, cosiest old
couple you ever knew. There was a great stopping at Lois's door, as
the girls walked past, for a bunch of the flowers she brought from the
country, or posies, as they called them, (Sam never would take any to
Jenny but "old man" and pinks,) and she always had them ready in broken
jugs inside. They were good, kind girls, every one of them,--had taken
it in turn to sit up with Lois last winter all the time she had the
rheumatism. She never forgot that time,--never once.

Later in the evening you would see a man coming along, close by the
wall, with his head down, the same Margret had seen in the mill,--a
dark man, with gray, thin hair,--Joe Yare, Lois's old father. No one
spoke to him,--people always were looking away as he passed; and if old
Mr. or Mrs. Polston were on the steps when he came up, they would say,
"Good-evening, Mr. Yare," very formally, and go away presently. It
hurt Lois more than anything else they could have done. But she
bustled about noisily, so that he would not notice it. If they saw the
marks of the ill life he had lived on his old face, she did not; his
sad, uncertain eyes may have been dishonest to them, but they were
nothing but kind to the misshapen little soul that he kissed so warmly
with a "Why, Lo, my little girl!" Nobody else in the world ever called
her by a pet name.

Sometimes he was gloomy and silent, but generally he told her of all
that had happened in the mill, particularly any little word of notice
or praise he might have received, watching her anxiously until she
laughed at it, and then rubbing his hands cheerfully. He need not have
doubted Lois's faith in him. Whatever the rest did, she believed in
him; she always had believed in him, through all the dark years, when
he was at home, and in the penitentiary. They were gone now, never to
come back. It had come right. If the others wronged him, and it hurt
her bitterly that they did, that would come right some day too, she
would think, as she looked at the tired, sullen face of the old man
bent to the window-pane, afraid to go out. But they had very cheerful
little suppers there by themselves in the odd, bare little room, as
homely and clean as Lois herself.

Sometimes, late at night, when he had gone to bed, she sat alone in the
door, while the moonlight fell in broad patches over the