am at high watter."

"Iss, I reckon," said Mrs. Tucker: "it don't never matter much what goes
wrong, so long as uncle gets his fill o' drink. I've said scores o'
times uncle's joy 'ud never run dry so long as liquor lasted."

"Awh, well," said Joan, "I don't knaw what us should ha' done if there'd
ha' bin no drink to give 'em: they'd ha' bin more than Eve and me could
manage, I can tell 'ee. Nobody but our ownselves, mother, will ever
knaw what us two maidens have had to go through."

"You've often had my thoughts with 'ee, Joan," said Mrs. Tucker, her
eyes dimmed by a rush of motherly sympathy for all the girls must have
suffered; "and you can tell Eve (for her'll take it better from you than
from me) that Adam's allays a-thinkin' of her, and begged and prayed
that she wudn't forget un."

"No fear o' that," said Joan, anxious that her mother should depart;
"and mind now you say, no matter what time 'tis, directly I'se seen
Jonathan and knaws 'tis safe for we somebody shall bring un word to come
back, for Eve and me's longin' to have a sight of un."

Charged with these messages, Mrs. Tucker hastened back to the mill,
where all had gone well since her departure, and where she found Adam
more tractable and reasonable than she had had reason to anticipate. He
listened to all Joan's messages, agreed with her suspicions and seemed
contented to abide by her decision. The plain, unvarnished statement
which Mrs. Tucker gave of the misery and gloom spread over the place
affected him visibly, and her account of the two girls, and the
alteration she had seen in them, did not tend to dispel his emotion.

"As for Joan," she said, letting a tear escape and trickle down her
cheek, "'tis heart-breakin' to look at her. Her's terrible wrapped up in
you, Adam, is Joan--more than, as her mother, I cares for her to awn to,
seein' how you'm situated with Eve."

"Oh, Eve never made no difference 'twixt us two," said Adam. Then, after
a pause, he asked, "Didn't Eve give you no word to give to me?"

"Well, no," said Mrs. Tucker: then, with the determination to deal
fairly, she added quickly, "but her was full o' questions about 'ee, and
that 'fore I'd time to draw breath inside the place." Adam was silent,
and Mrs. Tucker, considering the necessity for further explanation
removed by the compromise she had made, continued: "You see, what with
Jerrem and uncle, and the drink that goes on, they two poor maidens is
kept pretty much on the g