looked into the leaping flame of her fire and saw brightest
pictures of the future,--until suddenly she turned her head away and
covered her face with her hands, groaning bitterly: it was only a
blackened limb that, standing tall and straight in the flame, took upon
itself a grotesque resemblance to a one-armed man. And Miranda
remembered her affianced the book-agent. "Oh, land I how could I 'a'
forgot! I've give him my promise."

To Miranda's Puritan mind a promise was to be kept, with tears and blood
if need were.

"Oh, what a foolish woman I've been! If I had only waited till I found
out what the Lord _did_ mean by sendin' that money to me! _He_ wouldn't
stand the boys, anyhow: he's nigh and graspin': I've found that out. And
I don't suppose I could buy him off with anything short of the whole
property. I did think he cared a little something about me, and mebbe he
does. I don't want to be too hard on him, but he was terrible put out
because I wouldn't give him but three hundred dollars to pay down for
that land that he's buy in' at such a bargain. I s'pose I should, only I
couldn't help thinkin' he might wait till we was married before he begun
to think about investin' my money. No, he won't let me off from marryin'
him unless I give him all my money. Yesterday I had thoughts of doin'
that; but now there's the boys."

The queer black stick had fallen, and was crumbling away, but it had
crushed the last flickering flame. Miranda's fire, like her hopes, had
turned to ashes.

She walked the floor restlessly, seeking vainly for a pathway out of her
troubles, until she was exhausted. Then she slept a troubled sleep until
daylight.

It was a little comfort to get breakfast for Ephrum's wife and boys,
although she was so heavy-hearted.

She went across the field to Eben Curtis's to get a bit of fresh fish:
Eben had been fishing the day before.

Eben, who was a friendly young man, looked at her pityingly as he put
the' fish into her basket. As she was turning away in unwonted silence,
he was moved to say, "I wouldn't take it so hard if I was you, Miss
Daggett. You're well rid of such a scamp. And maybe they'll catch him
and get the money back. La, now! you don't say you hain't heard?" he
exclaimed at sight of Miranda's astonished face. "They most generally
_do_ get the news up to the poor-house." Eben lifted his hat and ran his
fingers through his hair with a mingling of sympathy and pleasure in
being the first to