s
embroidery on Victoria's waist, "won't he spoil your dress?"

"Bless him, no," said Victoria, poking her finger into a dimple--for he
was smiling at her. "What if he does?" and forthwith she seized him in
her arms and bore him to the porch, amidst the laughter of those who
beheld her, and sat him down on her knee in front of the lemonade bowl,
the tired mother beside her. "Will a little lemonade hurt him? Just a
very, very little, you know?"

"Why, no, ma'am," said the mother.

"And just a teeny bit of cake," begged Victoria, daintily breaking off
a piece, while the baby gurgled and snatched for it. "Do tell me how old
he is, and how many more you have."

"He's eleven months on the twenty-seventh," said the mother, "and I've
got four more." She sighed, her eyes wandering back to the embroidery.
"What between them and the housework and the butter makin', it hain't
easy. Be you married?"

"No," said Victoria, laughing and blushing a little.

"You'll make a good wife for somebody," said the woman. "I hope you'll
get a good man."

"I hope so, too," said Victoria, blushing still deeper amidst the
laughter, "but there doesn't seem to be much chance of it, and good men
are very scarce."

"I guess you're right," said the mother, soberly. "Not but what my man's
good enough, but he don't seem to get along, somehow. The farm's wore
out, and the mortgage comes around so regular."

"Where do you live?" asked Victoria, suddenly growing serious.

"Fitch's place. 'Tain't very far from the Four Corners, on the Avalon
road."

"And you are Mrs. Fitch?"

"Callate to be," said the mother. "If it ain't askin' too much, I'd like
to know your name."

"I'm Victoria Flint. I live not very far from the Four Corners--that is,
about eight miles. May I come over and see you sometime?"

Although Victoria said this very simply, the mother's eyes widened until
one might almost have said they expressed a kind of terror.

"Land sakes alive, be you Mr. Flint's daughter? I might have knowed it
from the lace--that dress must have cost a fortune. But I didn't think
to find you so common."

Victoria did not smile. She had heard the word "common" so used before,
and knew that it was meant for a compliment, and she turned to the woman
with a very expressive light in her eyes.

"I will come to see you--this very week," she said. And just then her
glance, seemingly drawn in a certain direction, met that of a tall young
man which had been