ad helped himself to another
piece--but he heard every word. After he had finished, he fumbled in
his pocket for his old leather purse, and counted over a little store
of money on his knee.

Charlotte was setting away the dishes in the pantry when her father
came up behind her and crammed something into her hand. She started.
"What is it?" said she.

"Look and see," said Cephas.

Charlotte opened her hand, and saw a great silver dollar. "I thought
mebbe you'd like to buy somethin' with it," said Cephas. He cleared
his throat, and went out through the kitchen into the shed. Charlotte
was too amazed to thank him; her mother came into the pantry. "What
did he give you?" she whispered.

Charlotte held up the money. "Poor father," said Sarah Barnard, "he's
doin' of it to make up. He was dreadful sorry about that other, an'
he's tickled 'most to death now he thinks you've got somebody else,
and are contented. Poor father, he ain't got much money, either."

"I don't want it," Charlotte said, her steady mouth quivering
downward at the corners.

"You keep it. He'd feel all upset if you didn't. You'll find it come
handy. I know you've got a good many things now, but you had ought to
have a new cape come fall; you can't come out bride in a muslin one
when snow flies." Sarah cast a half-timid, half-shrewd glance at
Charlotte, who put the dollar in her pocket.

"A green satin cape, lined and wadded, would be handsome," pursued
her mother.

"I sha'n't ever come out bride," said Charlotte.

"How you talk. There, he's comin' now!"

And, indeed, at that the clang of the knocker sounded through the
house. Charlotte took off her apron and started to answer it, but her
mother caught her and pinned up a stray lock of hair. "I 'most wish
you had put on your other dress again," she whispered.

Sarah listened with her ear close to the crack of the kitchen door
when her daughter opened the outside one. She heard Thomas Payne's
hearty greeting and Charlotte's decorous reply. The door of the front
room shut, then she set the kitchen door ajar softly, but she could
hear nothing but a vague hum of voices across the entry; she could
not distinguish a word. However, it was as well that she could not,
for her heart would have sunk, as did poor Thomas Payne's.

Thomas, with his thick hair brushed into a shining roll above his
fair high forehead, in his best flowered waistcoat and blue coat with
brass buttons, sat opposite Charlotte, his