shamefacedly at the success of his ruse when she sank into it with the
interrogative glance with which fat people always commit themselves to
furniture.

"Well, I've been to see her, and I must say, for a girl that's never
found grace, she's about the straightforwardest person I ever came
across. I know I was prejudiced." Mrs. Dysart took off her bonnet, a
sacred edifice constructed of cotton velvet, frowzy feathers, and red
glass currants, and gazed at it penitentially. "That father of hers is
enough to prejudice a saint. But the girl ain't to blame. I think she
must have had a prayin' mother, though she says she doesn't remember
anything about her exceptin' her clothes, which does sound worldly."

Mrs. Dysart straightened out the varnished muslin leaves of her
horticultural headgear, and held the structure at arm's length with a
sigh of gratified sense and troubled spirit.

"I invited her to come to the mothers' meetin' down at Mrs. Stearns's
in the wash with me next Thursday afternoon, and I'm goin' to have her
over to dinner some day when the old perfessor's off on a tramp. I try
to have Christian grace, but I can't quite go him, though I would like
to see the girl brought into the fold."

Palmerston remembered the steadfast eyes of the wanderer, and wondered
how they had met all this. His companion replaced the bonnet on her
head, where it lurched a little, by reason of insufficient skewering, as
she got up.

"Then you were pleased with Miss Brownell?" the young man broke out,
rather senselessly, he knew--aware, all at once, of a desire to hear
more.

Mrs. Dysart did not sit down.

"Yes," she said judicially; "for a girl without any bringin' up, and
with no religious inflooences, and no mother and no father to speak of,
I think she's full as good as some that's had more chances. I've got to
go and start a fire now," she went on, with an air of willingness but
inability to continue the subject. "There's Jawn comin' after the
milk-pail; I do wish he could be brought to listen to reason."

Palmerston watched the good woman as she labored down the path, her
dusty skirts drawn close about her substantial ankles, and the beaded
dolman glittering unfeelingly in the sun.

"I hope she has a sense of humor," he said to himself. Then he got up
hastily, went into the tent, and brought out a letter, which he read
carefully from the beginning to the signature scribbled in the upper
corner of the first page--"Your ow