e here to work."

"If you will enter the parlor, I will explain to you fully my views,
and--"

"Oh, please excuse me!" said Holcroft, hastily passing out. "I was just
starting for a walk--I'm bound to have one more day to myself on the
old place," he muttered as he bent his steps toward an upland pasture.

Jane, seeing that her mother was about to pounce upon her, ran behind
Mrs. Wiggins, who slowly rose and began a progress toward the irate
widow, remarking as she did so, "Hi'll just shut the door 'twixt ye and
yer hoffspring, and then ye kin say yer prayers hon the t'other side."

Mrs. Mumpson was so overcome at the turn affairs had taken on this day,
which was to witness such progress in her plans and hopes, as to feel
the absolute necessity of a prolonged season of thought and soliloquy,
and she relapsed, without further protest, into the rocking chair.

Chapter XII.

Jane

Holcroft was not long in climbing to a sunny nook whence he could see
not only his farm and dwelling, but also the Oakville valley, and the
little white spire of the distant meeting house. He looked at this
last-named object wistfully and very sadly. Mrs. Mumpson's tirade
about worship had been without effect, but the memories suggested by
the church were bitter-sweet indeed. It belonged to the Methodist
denomination, and Holcroft had been taken, or had gone thither, from
the time of his earliest recollection. He saw himself sitting between
his father and mother, a round-faced urchin to whom the sermon was
unintelligible, but to whom little Bessie Jones in the next pew was a
fact, not only intelligible, but very interesting. She would turn
around and stare at him until he smiled, then she would giggle until
her mother brought her right-about-face with considerable emphasis.
After this, he saw the little boy--could it have been
himself?--nodding, swaying, and finally slumbering peacefully, with his
head on his mother's lap, until shaken into sufficient consciousness to
be half dragged, half led, to the door. Once in the big, springless
farm wagon he was himself again, looking eagerly around to catch
another glimpse of Bessie Jones. Then he was a big, irreverent boy,
shyly and awkwardly bent on mischief in the same old meeting house.
Bessie Jones no longer turned and stared at him, but he exultingly
discovered that he could still make her giggle on the sly. Years
passed, and Bessie was his occasional choice for a sleigh-ride whe