existence! It is weak for me
to trouble you with my difficulties, but you have always understood me
from the first."

"Say no more," she replied. "I am a woman and pity is akin to love.
The fowls of Amanda Dalton's flock do not need me as you do. Eleven
eggs a day are laid here regularly, and I will go where my egg will be
a daily source of pleasure and profit."

"The coop is draughty and the corn scarce," confessed the rooster,
doing his best to be noble.

"I am of the sex created especially to supply companionship," returned
the hen, "therefore I will accompany you, regardless of personal
inconvenience."

Amanda saw the departure of the eloping couple and pursued them not.

"Land sakes!" she exclaimed, "if any male thing hereabouts has sprawl
enough to go courtin' I'm willin' to encourage 'em. She'll miss her
clean house and good food, I guess, but I ain't sure. She's
'women-folks' after all, and I shouldn't wonder a mite but she'd take
real comfort in makin' things pleasanter up there for that pindlin',
God-forsaken old rooster! She'll have her hands full, but there, I
know what 'tis to get along with empty ones!"

There were not many such romances or comedies as these to enliven
Amanda's mornings. Then afternoon would slip into twilight, darkness
would creep over the landscape, and Amanda's light--clear, steady,
bright, serene--would gleam from its place on the sink shelf through
the kitchen window, over the meadow, "up to Kimball's." It was such a
light as would stream from a well-trimmed lamp with a crystal clean
chimney, but it met with small response from its neighbor's light
during many months of the year. In late autumn and winter there would
be a fugitive candle gleam upstairs in the Kimball house, and on
stormy evenings a dull, smoky light in the living-room.

From the illumination in the Dalton sink window, Caleb thought Amanda
sat in the kitchen evenings, but she didn't. She said she kept the
second light there because she could afford it, and because the cat
liked it. The cat enjoyed the black haircloth sofa in the
sitting-room, afternoons, but she greatly preferred the kitchen for
evening use; it made a change, and the high-backed cushioned rocker
was then vacant. Amanda had nobody to consider but the cat, so she
naturally deferred to her in every possible way. It was bad for the
cat's character, but at least it kept Amanda from committing suicide,
so what would you? Here was a woman of insiste