“Lucilla!”

The pale, drooping girl started guiltily at her mother’s sharp exclamation, and made an effort to throw back her shoulders. Then she bit her nails nervously, but soon desisted, remembering that that also, as well as yielding to a relaxed tendency of the spinal column, was a forbidden indulgence.

“Put on your hat and go on out and get a breath of fresh air; you’re as white as milk-man’s cream.”

Lucilla rose and obeyed her mother’s order with the precision of a soldier, following the directions of his commander.

“How submissive and gentle your daughter is,” remarked Thérèse.

“Well, she’s got to be, and she knows it. Why, I haven’t got to do more than look at that girl most times for her to understand what I want. You didn’t notice, did you, how she straightened up when I called ‘Lucilla’ to her? She knows by the tone of my voice what she’s got to do.”

“Most mothers can’t boast of having such power over their daughters.”

“Well, I’m not the woman to stand any shenanigans from a child of mine. I could name you dead loads of women that are just completely walked over by their children. It’s a blessing that boy of Fanny’s died, between you and I; its what I’ve always said. Why, Mrs. Laferm, she couldn’t any more look after a youngster than she could after a baby elephant. By the by, what do you guess is the matter with her, any way?”

“How, the matter?” Thérèse asked; the too ready blood flushing her face and neck as she laid down her work and looked up at Mrs. Worthington.

“Why, she’s acting mighty queer, that’s all I can say for her.”

“I haven’t been able to see her for some time,” Thérèse returned, going back to her sewing, “but I suppose she got a little upset and nervous over her husband; he had a few days of very serious illness before you came.”

“Oh, I’ve seen her in all sorts of states and conditions, and I’ve never seen her like that before. Why, she does nothing in the God’s world but whine and sniffle, and wish she was dead; it’s enough to give a person the horrors. She can’t make out she’s sick; I never saw her look better in my life. She must of gained ten pounds since she come down here.”

“Yes,” said Thérèse, “she was looking so well, and-and I thought everything was going well with her too, but-” and she hesitated to go on.

“Oh, I know what you want to say. You can’t help that. No use bothering your brains about that-now you just take my advice,” exclaimed Mrs. Worthington brusquely.

Then she laughed so loud and suddenly that Thérèse, being already nervous, pricked her finger with her needle till the blood came; a mishap which decided her to lay aside her work.

“If you never saw a fish out of water, Mrs. Laferm, do take a peep at Mr. Worthington astride that horse; it’s enough to make a cat expire!”

Mrs. Worthington was on the whole rather inclined to take her husband seriously. As often as he might excite her disapproval, it was seldom that he aroused her mirth. So it may be gathered that his appearance in this unfamiliar r?le of horseman was of the most mirth-provoking.

He and Hosmer were dismounting at the cottage, which decided Mrs. Worthington to go and look after them; Fanny for the time being-in her opinion-not having “the gumption to look after a sick kitten.”

“This is what I call solid comfort,” she said looking around the well appointed sitting-room, before quitting it.

“You ought to be a mighty happy woman, Mrs. Laferm; only I’d think you’d die of lonesomeness, sometimes.”

Thérèse laughed, and told her not to forget that she expected them all over in the evening.

“You can depend on me; and I’ll do my best to drag Fanny over; so-long.”

When left alone, Thérèse at once relapsed into the gloomy train of reflections that had occupied her since the day she had seen with her bodily eyes something of the wretched life that she had brought upon the man she loved. And yet that wretchedness in its refinement of cruelty and immorality she could not guess and was never to know. Still, she had seen enough to cause her to ask herself with a shudder “was I right-was I right?”

She had always thought this lesson of right and wrong a very plain one. So easy of interpretation that the simplest minded might solve it if they would. And here had come for the first time in her life a staggering doubt as to its nature. She did not suspect that she was submitting one of ............