and your mother saddened
his last hours."

To her surprise Molly received the remark almost passionately.

"How could that give me back my mother's ruined life?" she demanded.

"I know, dear, but the fact remains that he was your father---"

"Oh, I don't care in the least about the fact," retorted Molly, with her
pretty rustic attempt at a shrug, which implied, in this case, that the
government of nature, like that of society, rested solely on the consent
of the governed. What was clear to Kesiah was that this rebellion
against the injustice of the universe, as well as against the expiation
of Mr. Jonathan, was the outcome of a strong, though undisciplined,
moral passion within her. In her way, Molly was as stern a moralist as
Sarah Revercomb, but she derived her convictions from no academic system
of ethics. Kesiah had heard of her as a coquette; now she realized that
beneath the coqueteries there was a will of iron.

"You must come to us, some day, dear, and let us do what we can to make
you happy," she said. "It would be a pity for all that money to go to
the conversion of the Chinese, who are doubtless quite happy as they
are."

"I wonder why he chose the Chinese?" replied the girl. "They seem so
far away, and there's poor little Mrs. Meadows at Piping Tree who is
starving for bread."

"He was always like that--and so is my sister Angela--the thing that
wasn't in sight was the thing he agonized over." She did not confess
that she had detected a similar weakness in herself, and that, seen the
world over, it is the indubitable mark of the sentimentalist.

Analysis of Mr. Jonathan's character, however, failed to interest his
daughter. She smiled sweetly, but indifferently, and made a movement to
pass on into the meadow. Then, looking into Kesiah's face, she said in
a warmer voice: "If ever you want my help about your store room, Miss
Kesiah, just send for me. When you're ready to change the brine on your
pickles, I'll come down and do it."

"Thank you, Molly," answered the other; "you're a nice light hand for
such things."

In some almost imperceptible manner she felt that the girl had rebuffed
her. The conversation had been pleasant enough, yet Kesiah had meant
to show in it that she considered Molly's position changed since the
evening before; and it was this very suggestion that the girl had tossed
lightly aside--tossed without rudeness or malice, but with a firmness,
a finality, which appeared to settle