e neighbours was so very kind to two girls."

"Jane, I knew your grandmother," said Anne, "and I know how hard she had
to work to keep you two girls respectably dressed and cared for. I know
you think I'm an interfering, peculiar woman and an old maid, but your
grandmother was no old maid. She lost your mother who'd have worked and
kept her when she was old, and instead of having an arm to lean on,
she'd to work morning, noon, and night, to give you two girls a home.
She was working when other people was sleeping. It's better even to go
to the Union than to do as you've done."

Jane, after twisting her fingers together, pulled out her handkerchief
with a jerk and began to cry, thus rousing the indolent anger of Richard
Burton, who, with a blustering tone, as though he wanted to shout down
an opponent, burst out--

"Well, she's here now and she's not going away. And you can tell the
kind neighbours that we can look after ourselves without their
assistance. And as for them good girls that used to play with Jane, I
know several who wouldn't have been slow to take the place. _I'll_ look
after Jane all right. And we're much obliged for your visit, Miss
Hilton," he continued, ironically. "We can spare you for quite a long
time now. You can save yourself the walk another time. If you want to be
home for dinner-time, you'd better be starting, don't you think?"

Anne rose stiffly, limping with rheumatism.

"Jane love, come with me," she said; "I can shelter you for a time, I
can give you--"

"No I won't," retorted Jane, petulantly, turning her back.

Anne went slowly out of the room. Richard Burton accompanied her with
offensive heartiness.

"Well, good morning, Miss Hilton," he said, opening the door with the
stained glass window, and stepping into the red-tiled porch, he looked
up at the sky. "I believe it's stopped raining--all the better for your
rheumatism, eh? Well! give my love to the neighbours you think so much
of," he shouted with a laugh, and shut the door. Anne opened the wooden
gate with brass nails, and shutting it behind her stood again in the
dripping lane.

CHAPTER X

The stirring of anger at Richard Burton's callousness gave way almost at
once to a feeling of fatigue and defeat as she started on her return
home, and a persistent image of Jane, a little girl playing
skipping-ropes in red stockings, kept coming before her eyes. One or two
gigs passed her, splashing among the pools of the road.