nly was the door fast, which was held
open with invitation to every one else.

It was the thought of this contrast, perhaps, that had been
working in Mrs. Verstage's mind, and had provoked the impatience
and occasioned the cruel words.

"Well," said Mehetabel to herself, "I must face it. I have only
the name that Iver gave me in the barn. I have no father, no
mother, and no other name than that which I am given in charity."
She looked at her gown. "I owe that to charity;" at her hands--"My
flesh is nourished out of charity." She wiped her eyes--the very
kerchief was a gift to her in charity. "It is so," she said. "I
must bear the thought and get accustomed to it. I was given a
name in charity, and in charity my father was granted a grave. All
I can look to as in some fashion my own--and yet they are not my
own--be the headstone in the churchyard to show how my real
father was killed, and the gallows on Hind Head, with the chains,
to tell where those hung who killed him. 'Tain't every one can
show that." She raised her head with a flash of pride. Human
Nature must find something on which to plume itself. If nothing
else can be found, then a murdered father and a gallows for the
murderers served.

Mehetabel was a handsome girl, and she knew it. She could not
fail to know it, situated as she was. The men who frequented the
public house would not leave a girl long in doubt whether she
were comely or the reverse.

But Mehetabel made small account of her appearance. No youth of
the neighborhood had won his way into her heart; and she blew away
the compliments lavished upon her as the men blew away the froth
from their tankards. What mattered it whether she were good-looking
or not, so long as she was only Mehetabel, without a surname,
without kin, without a penny!

When Iver had run away from home she had done all that lay in her
power to comfort the mother. She had relieved the landlady of half
of her work; she had stayed up her heart when downcast, despondent.
She had talked with her of the absent son, whose name the father
would not allow to be mentioned in his hearing; had encouraged her
with hopes, and, by her love, had sought to compensate for the loss.

It was due to her that the Ship Inn had a breath of youth and
cheerfulness infused into it. But for her, the absence and
indifference of the host, and the moroseness of the disappointed
hostess, would have driven custom away.

Mrs. Verstage had found her usef