"It's her loyalty. She can't help it. She takes it from me," declared
the mother, pouring another cup of tea for her shaken nerves.

"She does, hey?" Mr. Harnden's voice indicated that he was not
commending the quality mentioned.

His wife was decidedly tart in her retort that he ought to be thankful
for the loyalty that enabled her to put up with all the privations of
the past.

"Well, let the past be the past. I've got my feet placed now--and that
hired girl is coming to-morrow." The idea of his new prosperity revived
Mr. Harnden's natural optimism. "That jailbird hasn't been away from her
long enough for her to be weaned from her foolishness about him. He's
safe away for seven years, and a whole lot can happen in that time--even
to that loyalty that women seem to set such store by. My friend Britt
comes here--into our family! That's understood. If Vona wants to eat
off'n the mantelshelf in her room, well and good till she's tamed. And
now--to work--to work!"

Mr. Harnden was truly very much up-and-coming those days. He rose
and shook out first one leg and then the other, with the manner of a
scratching rooster. The movements settled the legs of his trousers. He
had a new suit of his own. It resembled Tasper Britt's. That new suit
and the yellow gloves and the billycock hat excited some interest in
Egypt; the new hitch that Harnden possessed excited much more interest.
He was driving a "trappy" bay nag, and his new road wagon had rubber
tires. Nor was Mr. Harnden doing any more inventing, so he declared to
the public. The public, however, did declare behind his back that he
must have invented something in the way of a system to be able to wear
those clothes and drive that hitch. To be sure, there were some who
insisted that the matter of Vona was still potent with Britt and that
Britt's money was behind Harnden. But there were more who were certain
that it was not the style of Britt to invest in any such remote
possibility as a girl who openly declared that she proposed to wait
seven years for the man of her choice.

Harnden had a new business; he was selling nursery stock. But that
business did not account for his prosperity. He was taking town orders
for his goods--taking orders on the town treasury, orders that had long
been creased in wallets or had grown yellow in bureau drawers or had
been dickered about at a few cents on the dollar and accepted when a
debtor had nothing else with which to pay. Mr. Harnden