er and hotter. We couldn't keep off it after
we left the wash-tubs and was a-havin' a bit of dinner; but I sticks to
it that a promised wife comes first, and then, with a shove, I found
myself out of doors, and the key locked behind me!'

Gwen laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks. Old Patty's intense
interest in the unknown young couple, and her warm partisanship for the
little dressmaker, together with her tragic tone and injured demeanour,
were too much for her gravity.

'You are two foolish old women,' she said at last. 'I suppose it is
love of your own opinions, and not the fate of these strangers, that
makes you so combative. Which of you has the stronger will?'

'Ay, we're wonderful alike in temper, more's the pity, but I consider
myself a fitter judge of right and wrong than Deb, who goes about and
hears so much that it's all hearin' and no meditatin', whiles I sit
here, and has the time and opportoonity to weigh the matters in and
out, without the clack of many tongues to confuse my brain and make me
say a man is a saint when he is a fool, not to say a sinner!'

Nothing that Gwen could say would calm the old woman, and when she went
up to the cottage door, Deb remained conveniently deaf to all her
knocks. She came home, and gave a graphic description of the quarrel
to her sisters; but when their obstinacy was being condemned, Agatha
said in her quiet way:

'Well, Gwen, you ought to have sympathy with them, for if any one ever
goes against you, I am sure you feel as they do.'

'You mean I am fond of my own way and opinions, and won't bear
contradiction! Oh, Agatha, how you love to preach to us all! I won't
say you are mistaken, for I am not going to get up an argument, and I
want you all to be especially agreeable while I lay a plan of mine
before you.'

'Now for it,' murmured Clare; and both Agatha and Elfie leant back in
their chairs, the one in anxious, the other in amused anticipation of
what might follow.

CHAPTER IX

Gwen's Resolve

'How little thou canst tell
How much in thee is ill or well!
Nor for thy neighbour, nor for thee,
Be sure!'--_Clough._

Gwen cleared her throat. She sat in a low wicker chair by the open
window of the drawing room, and for a minute her eye wandered out into
the back garden, which looked in perfect order, and hardly needed the
incessant hoeing and weeding of a lanky youth, who was now resting on
his hoe and leaning against the wall in