s nose into
every stink-pot, as you might say."

"Of course not," said the gentleman addressed as Luke Sturgis. "And show
me the man as ain't cur'ous" he said, with a wink, "and I'll show you
the man as is good at a plough and inwalable at a ditch, and wery near
worth his weight in gold at gapping a hedge, and mucking up a
horse-midden, and catching them nasty moles wot ruin the county worse
nor wars and publicans and parsons."

CHAPTER II.

It was Mercy Fisher who sat in the room to the left of the bar, and
played with the children, and laughed when they laughed, and tried to
forget that she was not as young as they were, and as happy and as free
from thought, living as they lived, from hour to hour, with no past, and
without a future, and all in the living present. But she was changed,
and was now no longer quite a child, though she had a child's heart that
would never grow old, but be a child's heart still, all the same that
the weight of a woman's years lay upon it, and the burden of a woman's
sorrow saddened it. A little older, a little wiser, perhaps, a little
graver of face, and with eyes a little more wistful.

A neighbor who had gone to visit a relative five miles away had brought
round her children, begging the "young missy" to take care of them in
her absence. A curly-headed boy of four sat wriggling in Mercy's lap,
while a girl of six stood by her side, watching the needles as she
knitted. And many a keen thrust the innocent, prattling tongues sent
straight as an arrow to Mercy's heart. The little fellow was revolving a
huge lozenge behind his teeth.

"And if oo had a little boy would oo give him sweets ery often--all
days--sweets and cakes--would oo?"

"Yes, every day, darling; I'd give him sweets and cakes every day."

"I 'ikes oo. And would oo let him go out to play with the big boys, and
get birds' nests and things, would oo?"

"Yes, bird's nests, and berries, and everything."

"I 'ikes oo, I do. And let him go to meet daddy coming home at night,
and ride on daddy's back?"

A shadow shot across the girl's simple face, and there was a pause.

"Would oo? And lift him on daddy's shoulder, would oo?"

"Perhaps, dear."

"Oh!" the little chap's delight required no fuller expression.

"Ot's oo doing?"

"Knitting, darling--there, rest quiet on my knee."

"Ot is it--knitting--stockings for oo little boy?"

"I have no little boy, sweetheart. They are mittens for a gentleman."

"How p