r."

Mrs. Rexford bethought her that she must look at some apples that were
baking in the kitchen oven, which she did, and was back in time to make
a remark in exchange without causing any noticeable break in the
conversation. She always gave remarks in exchange, seldom in reply.

"Scotchmen are faithful to their kinsfolk usually, aren't they, Sophia?"

"You think that the uncle she wrote to will answer. He may be dead, or
may have moved away; the chances are ten to one that he will not get the
letter. I think the girl is in our hands. We have come into a
responsibility that we can't make light of."

"Good gracious, Sophia! it's only the hen with one chicken that's afraid
to take another under her wing."

"I know you want to do your best for her--that's why I'm talking."

"Oh, _I_--it's you that takes half the burden of them all."

"Well, _we_ want to do our best--"

"And you, my dear, could go back whenever you liked. _You_ have not
burned the bridges and boats behind you. There's _one_ would be glad to
see you back in the old country, and that lover of yours is a good man,
Sophia."

A sudden flush swept over the young woman's face, as if the allusion
offended her; but she took no other notice of what was said, and
continued: "I don't suggest any radical alteration in our ways; I only
thought that, if you had it in your mind to make a companion of her, the
pains you take in teaching her might take a rather different form, and
perhaps have a better result."

"I think our own girls grow more giddy every day," said Mrs. Rexford,
exactly as if it were an answer. "If Blue and Red were separated they
would both be more sensible."

The mother's mind had now wandered from thought of the alien she had
taken, not because she had not given attention to the words of the
daughter she thought so wise, but because, having considered them as
long as she was accustomed to consider anything, she had decided to act
upon them, and so could dismiss the subject with a good conscience.

The conversation ceased thus, as many conversations do, without apparent
conclusion; for Sophia, vexed by her step-mother's flighty manner of
speech, hid her mood in silence. Anything like discussion between these
two always irritated Sophia, and then, conscious that she had in this
fallen below her ideal, she chafed again at her own irritation. The evil
from which she now suffered was of the stuff of which much of the pain
of life is made--a fl