suggested, as she pared
a newly basted seam with her creaking scissors. "Mis' French, whoever
she may be, has got him right under her thumb. I, for one, believe
she'll never get him, for all her pains. He's as sharp as she is any
day, when it comes to that; but he's made comfortable, and she
starches his shirt bosoms so's you can hear 'em creak 'way across the
meeting-house. I was in there the other night--she wanted to see me
about some work--and 't was neat as wax, and an awful good scent o'
somethin' they'd had for supper."

"That kind's always smart enough," granted the widow Topliff. "I want
to know if she cooks him a hot supper every night? Well, she'll catch
him if anybody can. Why don't you get a look into some o' the clusets,
if you go there to work? Ann was so formal I never spoke up as I
wanted to about seeing her things. They must have an awful sight of
china, and as for the linen and so on that the cap'n and his father
before him fetched home from sea, you couldn't find no end to it. Ann
never made 'way with much. I hope the mice ain't hivin' into it and
makin' their nests. Ann was very particular, but I dare say it wore
her out tryin' to take care o' such a houseful."

"I'm going there Wednesday," said Miranda. "I'll spy round all I can,
but I don't like to carry news from one house to another. I never was
one to make trouble; 't would make my business more difficult than't
is a'ready."

"I'd trust you," responded Mrs. Topliff, emphatically. "But there,
Mirandy, you know you can trust me too, and anything you say goes no
further."

"Yes'm," returned Miranda, somewhat absently. "To cut this the way you
want it is going to give the folds a ter'ble skimpy look."

"I thought it would from the first," was Mrs. Topliff's obliging
answer.

III.

The captain could not believe that two months had passed since his
sister's death, but Mrs. French assured him one evening that it was
so. He had troubled himself very little about public opinion, though
hints of his housekeeper's suspicious character and abominable
intentions had reached his ears through more than one disinterested
tale-bearer. Indeed, the minister and his wife were the only persons
among the old family friends who kept up any sort of intercourse with
Mrs. French. The ladies of the parish themselves had not dared to
asperse her character to the gruff captain, but were contented with
ignoring her existence and setting their husbands to the f