or mean,--that shows
God's kindness, through th' whiskey 'n' thievin', to th' orphints
or--such as me. Ther 's things th' Master likes in them, 'n' it'll
come right," she sobbed, "it'll come right at last; they'll have a
chance--somewhere."

Margaret did not speak; let the poor girl sob herself into quiet. What
had she to do with this gulf of pain and wrong? Her own higher life was
starved, thwarted. Could it be that the blood of these her brothers
called against _her_ from the ground? No wonder that the huckster-girl
sobbed, she thought, or talked heresy. It was not an easy thing to see
a mother drink herself into the grave. And yet--was she to blame? Her
Virginian blood was cool, high-bred; she had learned conservatism in her
cradle. Her life in the West had not yet quickened her pulse. So she put
aside whatever social mystery or wrong faced her in this girl, just as
you or I would have done. She had her own pain to bear. Was she her
brother's keeper? It was true, there was wrong; this woman's soul lay
shattered by it; it was the fault of her blood, of her birth, and
Society had finished the work. Where was the help? She was free,--and
liberty, Dr. Knowles said, was the cure for all the soul's diseases,
and----

Well, Lois was quiet now,--ready with her childish smile to be drawn
into a dissertation on Barney's vices and virtues, or a description of
her room, where "th' air was so strong, 'n' the fruit 'n' vegetables
allus stayed fresh,--best in _this_ town," she said, with a bustling
pride.

They went on down the road, through the corn-fields sometimes, or on
the riverbank, or sometimes skirting the orchards or barn-yards of the
farms. The fences were well built, she noticed,--the barns wide and
snug-looking: for this county in Indiana is settled by New England
people, as a general thing, or Pennsylvanians. They both leave their
mark on barns or fields, I can tell you! The two women were talking all
the way. In all his life Dr. Knowles had never heard from this silent
girl words as open and eager as she gave to the huckster about paltry,
common things,--partly, as I said, from a hope to forget herself, and
partly from a vague curiosity to know the strange world which opened
before her in this disjointed talk. There were no morbid shadows in this
Lois's life, she saw. Her pains and pleasures were intensely real, like
those of her class. If there were latent powers in her distorted brain,
smothered by hereditary vi