ld woman here who's right smart and handy when she can't
get her bottle filled. I believe she'd be glad to go with you, for she
don't like our board and lodging over much."

"Do you think she'd go tonight?"

"Oh, yes! Guess so. A little cold water'll be a good change for her."

Mrs. Wiggins was seen, and feeling that any change would be for the
better, readily agreed to go for very moderate wages. Holcroft looked
dubiously at the woman's heavy form and heavier face, but felt that it
was the best he could do. Squeezing Mrs. Watterly's cold, limp hand in
a way that would have thawed a lump of ice, he said "goodby;" and then
declaring that he would rather do his own harnessing for a night ride,
he went out into the storm. Tom put on his rubber coat and went to the
barn with his friend, toward whom he cherished honest good will.

"By jocks!" he ejaculated sympathetically, "but you have hard lines,
Jim. What in thunder would I do with two such widdy women to look after
my house!"

Chapter IX.

Mrs. Mumpson Accepts Her Mission

As Holcroft drove through the town, Mrs. Wiggins, who, as matters were
explained to her, had expressed her views chiefly by affirmative nods,
now began to use her tongue with much fluency.

"Hi 'ave a friend 'herhabouts," she said, "an' she's been a-keepin'
some of my things. Hi'll be 'olden to ye, master, hif ye'll jes stop a
bit hat the door whiles hi gets 'em. Hif ye'll hadvance me a dollar or
so on me wages hit'll be a long time hafore I trouble ye hagain."

The farmer had received too broad a hint not to know that Mrs. Wiggins
was intent on renewing her acquaintance with her worst enemy. He
briefly replied, therefore, "It's too late to stop now. I'll be coming
down soon again and will get your things."

In vain Mrs. Wiggins expostulated, for he drove steadily on. With a
sort of grim humor, he thought of the meeting of the two "widdy women,"
as Tom had characterized them, and of Mrs. Mumpson's dismay at finding
in the "cheap girl" a dame of sixty, weighing not far from two hundred.
"If it wasn't such awfully serious business for me," he thought, "it
would be better'n going to a theater to see the two go on. If I
haven't got three 'peculiar females' on my hands now, I'd like to hear
of the man that has."

When Mrs. Wiggins found that she could not gain her point, she subsided
into utter silence. It soon became evident in the cloudy light of the
moon that she was going to