you want
will not make you happy, and that the things you don't want would,
because I know you will not believe it. I will do my best to help you to
get what you want, so far as it is not wrong, if you will promise to
tell me all your difficulties."

"Will you help me? Why are you so kind?"

"Because--" said Sophia. Then she said no more.

Eliza showed herself cheered.

"You're the only one I care to talk to, Miss Sophia. The others haven't
as much sense as you, have they?"

As these words were quietly put forth in the darkness, without a notion
of impropriety, Sophia was struck with the fact that they coincided with
her own estimate of the state of the case.

"Eliza, what are you talking of--not of my father and mother surely?"

"Why, yes. I think they're good and kind, but I don't think they've a
deal of sense--do you?"

"My father is a wiser man than you can understand, Eliza; and--" Sophia
broke off, she was fain to retreat; it was cold for one thing.

"Miss Sophia," said Eliza, as she was getting to the door, "there's one
thing--you know that young man they were talking about to-night?"

"What of him?"

"Well, if he were to ask about me, you'd not tell him anything, would
you? I've never told anybody but you about father, or any particulars.
The others don't know anything, and you won't tell, will you?"

"I've told you I won't take upon myself to speak of your affairs. What
has that young man to do with it?"--with some severity.

"It's only that he's a traveller, and I feel so silly about every
traveller, for fear they'd want me to go back to the clearin'."

Sophia took the few necessary steps in the cold dark granary and reached
her own room.

CHAPTER XVI.

Sophia was sitting with Mrs. Rexford on the sofa that stood with its
back to the dining-room window. The frame of the sofa was not turned,
but fashioned with saw and knife and plane; not glued, but nailed
together. Yet it did not lack for comfort; it was built oblong, large,
and low; it was cushioned with sacking filled with loose hay plentifully
mixed with Indian grass that gave forth a sweet perfume, and the whole
was covered with a large neat pinafore of such light washing stuff as
women wear about their work on summer days. Sophia and her step-mother
were darning stockings. The homesickness of the household was rapidly
subsiding, and to-day these two were not uncomfortable or unhappy. The
rest of the family, some to work, some to