Pattie had eyes as well as Jane Adams, and she
took very good care that Mondays never took her down the garden within
reach of Jane's tongue. Yet the very proximity of Tom's sister on
Mondays brought him before Pattie's mind and made her remember that
phrase which had seemed like music to her, "going thin and a-fretting
for a worthless thing like you."

Yes! she was but a worthless thing--only Tom had not thought so. He
had loved her. Sam Willard liked her, but if she had not gone out with
him on Sunday evening after church, he would have asked somebody else
to go, and laughed and talked nonsense and enjoyed himself just the
same, scarcely heeding the difference of his companion. Sam was never
free on Saturday evening as Tom used to be. She wondered what Tom did
with his Saturdays now. She would like, unseen herself, to see Tom
for just a moment. She wondered if he ever thought of her now. It was
almost worth risking meeting Jane to know that!

Watch as she would, however, Jane saw nothing of Pattie till about
four o'clock that Monday afternoon, and then she saw her bustle out
into the garden, and begin vigorously brushing and dusting a child's
wheel chair. It was but a few minutes' work and Pattie took the chair
inside again, but a few moments later she reappeared at her bed-room
window, and throwing the sash up she brought a hat and a brush to the
sill and brushed the hat vigorously. Clearly Pattie and the child were
going out for a walk! At any rate, if she could but meet them on
her way to the station, Jane thought she could annoy Pattie pretty
considerably.

She had meant to have a few words with her lady about her dismissal,
but her lady had taken the opportunity to go out calling and left the
maid to pay Mrs. Adams, and Jane scarcely regretted it, so anxious was
she to be off before Pattie's walk should be over.

However, though she looked up and down every road she passed on her
way to the station, she saw no sign of Pattie, and the station bell
warning her of her train, she hurried on She did not want to lose it
and wait an hour.

She found the booking office in an uproar. In the centre of the crowd
of people gathered for this train, the greatest favourite in the day
for Mixham Junction, a terrible dog-fight was going on between a big
Irish terrier and a small black terrier, and the small dog was getting
the worst of it.

In vain the lady who owned the small dog, begged and besought the
onlookers to res