ush, thee! tha goes
on as if tha knew. Eh! but I mun be a bad lass. Ay, I'm bad through an'
through, an' I conna be no worse nor I am."

She did not kiss the child again, but held it in her listless way even
after it fell asleep. She rested an elbow on her knee and her chin upon
her hand while her tearful eyes searched the fire, and thus Joan found
her when she came in at dusk.

"Tha'rt late again, Joan," she said.

"Ay," Joan answered, "I'm late."

She laid her things aside and came to the firelight. The little one
always won her first attention when she came from her day's labor.

"Has she been frettin'?" she asked.

"Ay," said Liz, "she's done nowt else but fret lately. I dunnot know
what ails her."

She was in Joan's arms by this time, and Joan stood looking at the puny
face.

"She is na well," she said in a low voice. "She has pain as we know nowt
on, poor little lass. We conna help her, or bear it fur her. We would if
we could, little un,"--as if she forgot Liz's presence.

"Joan," Liz faltered, "what if yo' were to lose her?"

"I hope I shanna. I _hope_ I shanna."

"Yo' could na bear it?"

"Theer is na mich as we conna bear."

"That's true enow," said Liz. "I wish foak could dee o' trouble."

"Theer's more nor yo' has wished th' same," Joan answered.

She thought afterward of the girl's words and remembered how she looked
when she uttered them,--her piteous eyes resting on the embers, her weak
little mouth quivering, her small hands at work,--but when she heard
them, she only recognized in them a new touch of the old petulance to
which she had become used.

Joan went about her usual tasks, holding the baby in her arms. She
prepared the evening meal with Liz's assistance and they sat down to eat
it together. But Liz had little appetite. In-deed neither of them ate
much and both were more than usually silent. A shadow of reserve had
lately fallen between them.

After the meal was ended they drew their seats to the hearth again, and
Liz went back to her brooding over the fire. Joan, lulling the child,
sat and watched her. All Liz's beauty had returned to her. Her soft,
rough hair was twisted into a curly knot upon her small head, her
pretty, babyish face was at its best of bloom and expression--that
absent, subdued look was becoming to her.

"Theer's honest men as mought ha' loved her," said Joan, inwardly.
"Theer's honest men as would ha' made her life happy."

It was just as she was thinki