ion of his
neighbors. There had been a good deal of covert sympathy for Mrs.
Randall at first, but as years went by it had died out for lack of
opportunity to display itself. True, the minister had made an effort
once to express to her his approval of her course, but it was not likely
that any one else would undertake it, nor that he would repeat the
attempt. She had looked at him curiously, and when she spoke the iciness
of her tone made his own somewhat frigid utterances seem blushingly warm
and familiar by contrast.

"It would be strange," she said, "if a wife should need encouragement to
stand by her husband when he is in trouble."

Alex had hated the minister ever since, and had made this an excuse for
growing neglect of religious duties.

"It is no wonder he dreads to go to preachin', with that awful sin on
his conscience," the women whispered to one another. They always
whispered when they spoke of sin, as if it were sleeping somewhere near,
and were liable to be aroused. Matilda divined their thoughts, and
fretted under Alex's neglect of public service. She wished him to carry
his head high, with the dignity of innocence. It appalled him at times
to see how perfectly she apprehended her own part as the wife of a man
wrongfully accused. He was not dull, but he had a stupid masculine
candor of soul that stood aghast before her unswerving hypocrisy. She
had never asked him to deny his guilt; she had simply set herself to
establish his innocence.

Small wonder that she was tried and hampered by his failure to "act like
other people," as she would have said if she had ever put her worry into
words. It had been one of many disappointments to her that he should go
to mill that day, instead of putting on his best coat and sitting in
sullen discomfort through the pastor's "catechising." She had felt such
pride in his presence at church on Sabbath; and then had come the
announcement, "Thursday afternoon, God willing, I shall visit the family
of Mr. Alexander Randall." How austerely respectable it had sounded! And
the people had glanced toward the pew and seen Alex sitting there, with
Wattie on his knee. And after all he had gone to mill, and left her to
be pitied as the wife of a man who was afraid to face the preacher in
his own house!

Matilda slipped the rustling splendor of her purple silk over her head,
and went back to the limpness of her week-day calico with a sigh.

When Alex came in for the milk-pail, she