ody in his wife's place, they set so by one
another. An' I spoke a good word for ye. I says, 'Now look here! 't
ain't 's if Mari' Durrant was a girl o' twenty-five; she's a smart
capable creatur',' says I, 'an''"--

"I guess I've got an old dress I can let you have."

Maria Durrant, with crimson cheeks and a beating heart, rose suddenly
and escaped to the back stairway. She left old Polly sitting in the
kitchen so long that she fell into a comfortable drowse, from which
she was recalled by Maria's reappearance with a bundle of discarded
garments, but there was something stern and inhospitable in these last
moments of the visit, and Polly soon shuffled off down the lane,
mumbling and muttering and hugging the bundle with great delight. She
always enjoyed her visits to the Haydon farm. But she had left Miss
Durrant crying by the western window; the bitter tears were falling on
Israel Haydon's old black coat. It seemed very hard that a woman who
had spent all her life working for others should be treated as the
enemy of kindred and acquaintance; this was almost the first time in
all her history that she had managed to gather and hold a little peace
and happiness. There was nothing to do now but to go back to her
brother's noisy shiftless house; to work against wind and tide of
laziness and improvidence. She must slave for the three boarders, so
that her brother's wife could go to New York State to waste her time
with a sister just as worthless, though not so penniless, as herself.
And there was young Johnny, her nephew, working with Mr. Haydon on the
farm, and doing so well, he must go back too, and be put into the
factory. Maria looked out of the window; through the tears that stood
in her eyes the smooth green fields were magnified and transfigured.

The door opened, and Mr. Haydon entered with deliberate step and a
pleasant reassuring look. He almost never smiled, but he happened to
be smiling then. "I observed you had company just now; I saw old Polly
Norris going down the lane when I was coming up from the field," he
said, and then stopped suddenly, and took a step nearer to Maria; he
had never seen his cheerful housemate in tears. He did not ask the
reason; they both felt embarrassed, and yet each was glad of the
other's presence. Mr. Haydon did not speak, but Maria brushed her
tears away, and tried to go on sewing. She was mending the lining of
the second-best black coat with most touching care.

"I expect I sha