n living all this time
in a nearby village, fell from a ladder and broke his neck. "Just,"
said Eben Wicket, "as I expected."

No one, however, expected to see his widow come to live with her
father-in-law. The old man himself went to fetch her and her year-old
child. She proved to be a small, plain body, with an air of fright
about her, as though life had surprised her. Out of respect for Eben,
as they put it, the gossips went to call. They found her shy, and
inclined to be silent; they drank their tea, and examined her with
curiosity, while she, for her part, seemed to want to hide away.

"As who wouldn't, in her place," said Mrs. Ploughman.

It was agreed that, having married an out-and-out rascal, she ought to
be willing to spend the remainder of her life quietly. So she was left
to herself, which seemed, on the face of it, to be about what she
wanted. She tended Eben's house, drove the one cow to pasture, and
sang to little Juliet from morning till night the songs she remembered
from her own childhood.

During that time no one had any fault to find with her, excepting old
Mrs. Crabbe, who thought she should have called her child Mary instead
of Juliet. "It's not a proper name," she said to Mrs. Tomkins. "It
isn't in the Bible, Mrs. Tomkins. You'd do as well to call the child
Salomy. Salomy's in the Bible."

When Eben Wicket died, early in 1917, he left his house and about an
acre of land to his daughter-in-law. She was poor; still, she had
enough to get along on. She was young, but every one thought of her as
a woman whose life was over. So when Noel Ploughman took to keeping
company with her, the gossips were all aflitter. It was June; the
regulars were on their way to France; and what with the war, and Mrs.
Wicket, the village had plenty to talk about. Old Mrs. Ploughman said
nothing, but regarded her friends with a gloomy and thoughtful air. On
the other hand, Miss Beal, the dressmaker, saw no reason to keep her
opinions to herself. "It's a scandal," she said to her friend Mrs.
Grumble; "what with Eben Wicket scarcely cold in his grave, and John a
thief, with his neck broke and heaven only knows what else besides."

Nevertheless, that summer Noel Ploughman's sober, honest face was often
to be seen in Mrs. Wicket's garden patch, among the beans and the
lettuces. Who can say what they found in one another to admire? In
his company she was both happy and regretful, while he, seeing her by