the
farm, my advice is that you have a woman to do the housework, and me
and Angy must try to find you one, if the one I have in mind won't
answer. The trouble is, Holcroft, to get the right kind of a woman to
live there alone with you, unless you married her. Nice women don't
like to be talked about, and I don't blame 'em. The one that's here,
though, is so friendless and alone in the world that she might be glad
enough to get a home almost anywheres."

"Well, well! Tell me about her," said Holcroft gloomily. "But I'm about
discouraged in the line of women help."

Watterly told Alida's story with a certain rude pathos which touched
the farmer's naturally kind heart, and he quite forgot his own need in
indignation at the poor woman's wrongs. "It's a **** shame!" he said
excitedly, pacing the room. "I say, Tom, all the law in the land
wouldn't keep me from giving that fellow a whipping or worse."

"Well, she won't prosecute; she won't face the public; she just wants
to go to some quiet place and work for her bread. She don't seem to
have any friends, or else she's too ashamed to let them know."

"Why, of course I'd give such a woman a refuge till she could do
better. What man wouldn't?"

"A good many wouldn't. What's more, if she went with you her story
might get out, and you'd both be talked about."

"I don't care that for gossip," with a snap of his fingers. "You know
I'd treat her with respect."

"What I know, and what other people would say, are two very different
things. Neither you nor anyone else can go too strongly against public
opinion. Still, it's nobody's business," added Tom thoughtfully.
"Perhaps it's worth the trial. If she went I think she'd stay and do
the best by you she could. Would you like to see her?"

"Yes."

Alida was summoned and stood with downcast eyes in the door. "Come in
and take a chair," said Tom kindly. "You know I promised to be on the
lookout for a good place for you. Well, my friend here, Mr. Holcroft,
whom I've known ever since I was a boy, wants a woman to do general
housework and take care of the dairy."

She gave the farmer one of those swift, comprehensive glances by which
women take in a personality, and said in a tone of regret, "But I don't
understand dairy work."

"Oh, you'd soon learn. It's just the kind of a place you said you
wanted, a lonely, out-of-the-way farm and no other help kept. What's
more, my friend Holcroft is a kind, honest man. He'd tre