Lucy Ann.
"Leastways, Abby did, an' she thinks mebbe you've got a little time for
us now, though we ain't nothin' to offer compared to what you're used to
over there."

"I'll come," said Lucy Ann promptly. "Yes, I'll come, an' be glad to."

It was part of her allegiance to the one who had gone.

"Ezra needs bracin'," she heard her mother say, in many a sick-room
gossip. "He's got to be flattered up, an' have some grit put into him."

It was many weeks before Lucy Ann came home again. Cousin Rebecca, in
Saltash, sent her a cordial letter of invitation for just as long as she
felt like staying; and the moneyed cousin at the Ridge wrote in like
manner, following her note by a telegram, intimating that she would not
take no for an answer. Lucy Ann frowned in alarm when the first letter
came, and studied it by daylight and in her musings at night, as if some
comfort might lurk between the lines. She was tempted to throw it in
the fire, not answered at all. Still, there was a reason for going. This
cousin had a broken hip, she needed company, and the flavor of old
times. The other had married a "drinkin' man," and might feel hurt at
being refused. So, fortifying herself with some inner resolution she
never confessed, Lucy Ann set her teeth and started out on a visiting
campaign. John was amazed. He drove over to see her while she was
spending a few days with an aunt in Sudleigh.

"When you been home last, Lucy Ann?" asked he.

A little flush came into her face, and she winked bravely.

"I ain't been home at all," said she, in a low tone. "Not sence August."

John groped vainly in mental depths for other experiences likely to
illuminate this. He concluded that he had not quite understood Lucy Ann
and her feeling about home; but that was neither here nor there.

"Well," he remarked, rising to go, "you're gittin' to be quite a
visitor."

"I'm tryin' to learn how," said Lucy Ann, almost gayly. "I've been
a-cousinin' so long, I sha'n't know how to do anything else."

But now the middle of November had come, and she was again in her own
house. Cousin Titcomb had brought her there and driven away, concerned
that he must leave her in a cold kitchen, and only deterred by a looming
horse-trade from staying to build a fire. Lucy Ann bade him good-by,
with a gratitude which was not for her visit, but all for getting home;
and when he uttered that terrifying valedictory known as "coming again,"
she could meet it cheerfully. S