rk in a
way that would give me a chance to make a little, and then leave me to
myself."

"Well, well," said Mr. Weeks, laughing, "you needn't think that because
I've hinted at a good match for you I'm making one for my wife's
cousin. You may see the day when you'll be more hot for it than she
is. All I'm trying to do is to help you keep your place, and live like
a man ought and stop people's mouths."

"If I could only fill my own and live in peace, it's all I ask. When I
get to plowing and planting again I'll begin to take some comfort."

These words were quoted against Holcroft, far and near. "Filling his
own mouth and making a little money are all he cares for," was the
general verdict. And thus people are misunderstood. The farmer had
never turned anyone hungry from his door, and he would have gone to the
poorhouse rather than have acted the part of the man who misrepresented
him. He had only meant to express the hope that he might be able to
fill his mouth--earn his bread, and get it from his native soil.
"Plowing and planting"--working where he had toiled since a
child--would be a solace in itself, and not a grudged means to a sordid
end.

Mr. Weeks was a thrifty man also, and in nothing was he more economical
than in charitable views of his neighbors' motives and conduct. He
drove homeward with the complacent feeling that he had done a shrewd,
good thing for himself and "his folks" at least. His wife's cousin was
not exactly embraced in the latter category, although he had been so
active in her behalf. The fact was, he would be at much greater pains
could he attach her to Holcroft or anyone else and so prevent further
periodical visits.

He regarded her and her child as barnacles with such appalling adhesive
powers that even his ingenuity at "crowding out" had been baffled. In
justice to him, it must be admitted that Mrs. Mumpson was a type of the
poor relation that would tax the long suffering of charity itself. Her
husband had left her scarcely his blessing, and if he had fled to ills
he knew not of, he believed that he was escaping from some of which he
had a painfully distinct consciousness. His widow was one of the
people who regard the "world as their oyster," and her scheme of life
was to get as much as possible for nothing. Arrayed in mourning weeds,
she had begun a system of periodical descents upon his relatives and
her own. She might have made such visitations endurable and even
welc