dy find out
anything?"

"I don't believe Mr. Allen ever once thought of her," said Sylvia,
and there was resentment in her voice.

"Of course he didn't. Maybe he'll take a shine to that girl you've
got with you now."

"Neither one of them has even thought of such a thing," declared
Sylvia, and her voice was almost violent.

"Well, I don't know," Lucinda said, indifferently. "I have had too
much to look out for of my own affairs since the girl came to know
anything about that. I only thought of their being in the same house.
I always had sort of an idea myself that maybe Lucy Ayres would be
the one."

"I hadn't," said Sylvia. "Not but she--well, she looked real sick
to-day. She didn't look fit to stand up there and sing. I should
think her mother would be worried about her. And she don't sing half
as well as you do."

"Yes, she does," replied Lucinda. "She sings enough sight better than
I do."

"Well, I don't know much about music," admitted Sylvia. "I can't tell
if anybody gets off the key."

"I can," said Lucinda, firmly. "She sings enough sight better than I
can, but I sang plenty well enough for them, and if I hadn't been so
mad at the way I've been treated I'd kept on. Now they can get on
without me. Lucy Ayres does look miserable. There's consumption in
her family, too. Well, it's good for her lungs to sing, if she don't
overdo it. Good-bye, Sylvia."

"Good-bye," said Sylvia. She hesitated a moment, then she said:
"Don't you mind, Lucinda. Henry and I think just the same of you as
we've always thought, and there's a good many besides us. You haven't
any call to feel bad."

"I don't feel bad," said Lucinda. "I've got spunk enough and grit
enough to bear any load that I 'ain't heaped on my own shoulders, and
the Lord knows I 'ain't heaped this. Don't you worry about me,
Sylvia. Good-bye."

Lucinda went her way. She held her nice black skirt high, but her
plodding feet raised quite a cloud of dust. Her shoulders were thrown
back, her head was very erect, the jetted ornament on her bonnet
shone like a warrior's crest. She stepped evenly out of sight, as
evenly as if she had been a soldier walking in line and saying to
himself, "Left, right; left, right."

Chapter X

When Sylvia reached home she found Rose Fletcher and Horace Allen
sitting on the bench under the oak-trees of the grove north of the
house. She marched out there and stood before them, holding her
fringed parasol in such a way tha