ary curiosity, I
suppose. Why were they all so sure she was harmless? I had thought her
expression a little alarming at times, especially when she took the
money from my hand. If I had refused it or even held it back a little, I
think she would have fallen upon me tooth and nail. I wished I could
take a peep into her cottage. Mr. Gryce had described it as four walls
and nothing more, and indeed it was small and of the humblest
proportions; but the fluttering of some half-dozen pigeons about its
eaves proved it to be a home and, as such, of interest to me, who am
often able to read character from a person's habitual surroundings.

There was no yard attached to this simple building, only a small open
place in front in which a few of the commonest vegetables grew, such as
turnips, carrots, and onions. Elsewhere towered the forest--the great
pine forest through which this portion of the road ran.

Mr. Simsbury had been so talkative up to now that I was in hope he would
enter into some details about the persons and things we encountered,
which might assist me in the acquaintanceship I was anxious to make. But
his loquaciousness ended with this small adventure I have just
described. Not till we were well quit of the pines and had entered into
the main thoroughfare did he deign to respond to any of my suggestions,
and then it was in a manner totally unsatisfactory and quite
uncommunicative. The only time he deigned to offer a remark was when we
emerged from the forest and came upon the little crippled child, looking
from its window. Then he cried:

"Why, how's this? That's Sue you see there, and her time isn't till
arternoon. Rob allers sits there of a mornin'. I wonder if the little
chap's sick. S'pose I ask."

As this was just what I would have suggested if he had given me time, I
nodded complacently, and we drove up and stopped.

The piping voice of the child at once spoke up:

"How d' ye do, Mr. Simsbury? Ma's in the kitchen. Rob isn't feelin' good
to-day."

I thought her tone had a touch of mysteriousness in it. I greeted the
pale little thing, and asked if Rob was often sick.

"Never," she answered, "except, like me, he can't walk. But I'm not to
talk about it, ma says. I'd like to, but----"

Ma's face appearing at this moment over her shoulder put an end to her
innocent garrulity.

"How d' ye do, Mr. Simsbury?" came a second time from the window, but
this time in very different tones. "What's the child been