Some she had told
before, but she did not know it. She said them to a little girl in a
white frock, with her hair freshly curled, carrying a doll, and she
ran away crying with fright. She said them to three barefooted boys
loping along in the dust, with berry-pails, and they laughed and
turned around and mocked her, calling the words after her. When she
went up the path to the Maxwell house, she said them where the shadow
of a pine-tree fell darkly in front of her like the shadow of a man.
She said them when she stood before the door of the house whose
hospitality she had usurped. There was a little crowd at her heels,
but she did not notice them until she was entering the door. Then she
said the words over to them: "I ain't Esther Maxwell."

She entered the sitting-room, the people following. There were her
three old friends and neighbors, the minister and his wife, Daniel
Tuxbury, his sister and her daughter, Mrs. Jane Maxwell and her
daughter, and her own Lois. She faced them all and said it again: "I
ain't Esther Maxwell."

The lawyer jerked himself forward; his face was twitching. "This
woman's mind is affected," he declared with loud importance. "She is
Esther Maxwell. I will swear to it in any court. I recognize her, and
I never forget a face."

"I ain't Esther Maxwell," said Jane Field, in her voice that was as
remorseless and conclusive as fate.

Lois pressed forward and clung to her.

"Mother!" she moaned; "mother!"

Then for once her mother varied her set speech. "Lois wa'n't to
blame," she said; "I want you to know it, all of you. Lois wa'n't to
blame. She didn't know until after I'd done it. She wanted to tell,
but I told her they'd put me in prison. Lois wa'n't to blame. I ain't
Esther Maxwell."

"O mother, don't, don't!" Lois sobbed.

She hung about her mother's neck, and pressed her lips to that pale
wrinkled face, whose wrinkles seemed now to be laid in stone. Not a
muscle of Jane Field's face changed. She kept repeating at intervals,
in precisely the same tone, her terrible under-chord to all the
excitement about her: "I ain't Esther Maxwell."

Some of the women were crying. Amanda Pratt sat sewing fast, with her
mouth set. She clung to her familiar needle as if it were a rope to
save her from destruction. Francis Arms had come in, and stood close
to Lois and her mother.

Suddenly Jane Maxwell spoke. She was pale, and her head-dress was
askew.

"I call this pretty work," said she.

Th