nely creature like herself.
She met his look with a smile that, directed toward his master, would
have sent Rufus into the seventh heaven of complacence.

"I have met Pete already," she said, kindly. "He drove us up from the
station. I'm glad you are helping Mrs. Carder, Pete. She seems to have
too much to do."

The boy did not reply, but he appeared unable to remove his eyes from
Geraldine's kind look, and careless of where he was going he stumbled
against the sink.

"Look out, Pete!" exclaimed his mistress. "What makes you so clumsy? You
nearly scalded me. I guess he's tired, too." The old woman sighed.
"Everybody picks on Pete. They all find something for him to do."

"Then run away now," said Geraldine, still warming the boy's dull eyes
with her entrancing smile, "and let me take your place. I can dry dishes
as fast as anybody can wash them."

The dwarf slowly backed away, and disappeared into the woodshed, keeping
his gaze to the last on the sunny-haired loveliness which had invaded
the ugliness of that low-ceiled kitchen.

Geraldine seized a dish-towel, and Mrs. Carder, her hands in the suds,
cast a troubled glance around at her.

"Rufus won't like it," she declared timorously.

"Why should you say anything so foolish? What did I come out here for?"

The old woman looked around at her with a brief, strange look.

"You couldn't get help," went on Geraldine, "and so as I needed a home I
came."

"Is that what they told you?"

"Yes. That is what my stepmother told me, and I see it is true. You seem
to have no one here but men."

"Yes," replied Mrs. Carder. "It--it hasn't been a healthy place for
girls." She cast a glance toward the door as she spoke in a lowered
voice.

"Dreadfully lonely, you mean?" inquired Geraldine, unpleasantly affected
by the other's timidity. "The woman has no spirit," she added mentally
with some impatience.

Mrs. Carder looked full in her eyes for a silent space; then: "Rufus can
do anything he wants to--anything," she whispered.

Geraldine, in the act of wiping a coarse, thick dinner-plate, met the
other's gaze with a little frown.

"Don't give in to him, my dear," went on the sharp whisper. "You are too
beautiful, too young. He's crazy about you, so you be firm. Don't give
in to him. Insist on his marrying you!"

The thick dinner-plate fell to the floor with a crash.

"Marrying him!" ejaculated Geraldine.

"Sh! Sh! Oh, Miss Melody, hush!"

Geraldine began to shiv