y to hear about Adam--what message he had sent and
whether she could not go to see him--she had barely patience to listen
to Mrs. Tucker's roundabout details and lugubrious lamentations, and,
choosing a very inopportune moment, she broke out with, "What message
has Adam sent, Mrs. Tucker? He's sent a message to me, I'm sure: I know
he must have."

"Awh, well, if you knaws, you don't want to be told, then," snorted Mrs.
Tucker, ill pleased at having her demands upon sympathy put to such
sudden flight. "Though don't you think, Eve, that Adam hasn't got
somethin' else to think of than sendin' love-messages and nonsense o'
that sort? He's a good deal too much took up 'bout the trouble we'm all
in for that.--He hoped you was all well, and keepin' yer spirits up,
Joan."

"Poor sawl!" sighed Joan: "I 'spects he finds that's more than he can
do."

"Ah, you may well say that," replied Mrs. Tucker, casting a troubled
look toward her daughter's altered face. "Adam's doin' purtty much the
same as you be, Joan--frettin' his insides out."

"He's fretting, then?" gasped Eve, managing to get the words past the
great lump which seemed to choke her further utterance.

"Frettin'," repeated Mrs. Tucker with severity. "But there! why should
I?" she added, as if blaming her sense of injury. "I keeps forgettin'
that, compared with Joan, Eve, you'm nothin' but a stranger, as you may
say; and, though I dare say I sha'n't get your thanks for saying it,
still Adam could tell 'ee so well as me that fresh faces is all very
well in fair weather, but in times of trouble they counts for very
little aside o' they who's bin brought up from the same cradle, you may
say."

Eve's swelling heart could bear no more. This sense of being set aside
and looked on as a stranger was a gall which of late she had been
frequently called upon to endure, but to have it hinted at that Adam
could share in this feeling toward her--oh, it was too much, and rising
hastily she turned to run up stairs.

"Now, there's no call to fly off in no tantrums, Eve," said Mrs. Tucker;
"so just sit down now and listen to what else I've got to say."

But Eve's outraged love could hide itself no longer: to answer Joan's
mother with anything like temper was impossible, and, knowing this, her
only refuge was in flight. "I don't want to hear any more you may have
to say, Mrs. Tucker;" and though Eve managed to keep under the sharpness
of her voice, she could not control the indigna