retty well--in a way. But don't forget
she's only hired me the same as she's hired Andy, or any of the rest
of the hands. Why, I haven't even the same position as you have. I am
paid so many dollars a month, for which I have to do certain work. Let
me tell you this, my girl: if I had stayed on this farm until father
died my position would have been very different. It would all have
been mine now."

"Well, since you didn't do so, the farm is mother's." Prudence's pale
cheeks had become flushed with anger. "And I think, all things
considered, she has treated you particularly well."

And she turned back to her work.

The girl was very angry, and justifiably so. Hervey was lazy. The work
which was his was rarely done unless it happened to fall in with his
plans for the moment. He was thoroughly bearish to both his mother and
herself, and he had already overdrawn the allowance the former had
made him. All this had become very evident to the girl since her
return to the farm, and it cut her to the quick that the peace of her
home should have been so rudely broken. Even Prudence's personal
troubles were quite secondary to the steady grind of Hervey's
ill-manners.

Curiously enough, after the first passing of the shock of Grey's
death she found herself less stricken than she would have deemed it
possible. There could be no doubt that she had loved the man in her
girlish, adoring fashion.

She had thought that never again could she return to the place which
had such dread memories for her. Thoughts of the long summer days, and
the dreary, interminable winter, when the distractions of labour are
denied the farmer, had been revolting to her. To live within a few
miles of where that dreadful tragedy had occurred; to live amongst the
surroundings which must ever be reminding her of her dead lover; these
things had made her shrink from the thought of the time when she would
again turn westward to her home.

But when she had once more taken her place in the daily life at the
farm, it was, at first with a certain feeling of self-disgust, and
later with thankfulness, that she learned that she could face her old
life with perfect equanimity. The childish passion for her dead lover
had died; the shock which had suddenly brought about her own
translation from girlhood to womanhood had also dispelled the
illusions of her girlish first love.

She confided nothing to anybody, but just went about her daily round
of labours in a quiet