eyes glittered, red spots came on her flaccid cheeks; she
kept opening her mouth to speak, making little abortive motions.
Finally she could endure it no longer; she nudged Rebecca boldly.

"A pleasant day," said she.

Rebecca looked at her and nodded coldly.

"Yes, very," she assented.

"Have you come far?"

"I have come from Michigan."

"Oh!" said the woman, with awe. "It's a long way," she remarked
presently.

"Yes, it is," replied Rebecca, conclusively.

Still the other woman was not daunted; there was something which she
determined to know, possibly roused thereto by a vague sense of
incongruity in the other's appearance. "It's a long ways to come and
leave a family," she remarked with painful slyness.

"I ain't got any family to leave," returned Rebecca shortly.

"Then you ain't--"

"No, I ain't."

"Oh!" said the woman.

Rebecca looked straight ahead at the race of the river.

It was a long ferry. Finally Rebecca herself waxed unexpectedly
loquacious. She turned to the other woman and inquired if she knew
John Dent's widow who lived in Ford Village. "Her husband died about
three years ago," said she, by way of detail.

The woman started violently. She turned pale, then she flushed; she
cast a strange glance at her husband, who was regarding both women with
a sort of stolid keenness.

"Yes, I guess I do," faltered the woman finally.

"Well, his first wife was my sister," said Rebecca with the air of one
imparting important intelligence.

"Was she?" responded the other woman feebly. She glanced at her
husband with an expression of doubt and terror, and he shook his head
forbiddingly.

"I'm going to see her, and take my niece Agnes home with me," said
Rebecca.

Then the woman gave such a violent start that she noticed it.

"What is the matter?" she asked.

"Nothin', I guess," replied the woman, with eyes on her husband, who
was slowly shaking his head, like a Chinese toy.

"Is my niece sick?" asked Rebecca with quick suspicion.

"No, she ain't sick," replied the woman with alacrity, then she caught
her breath with a gasp.

"When did you see her?"

"Let me see; I ain't seen her for some little time," replied the woman.
Then she caught her breath again.

"She ought to have grown up real pretty, if she takes after my sister.
She was a real pretty woman," Rebecca said wistfully.

"Yes, I guess she did grow up pretty," replied the woman in a trembling
voice.

"What kind of