," said Mrs. Fitch; "come into the parlour. You'll dirty
your dress--Mary!" This last in admonition.

"Let her stay where she is," said Victoria, putting her arm around the
child. "The dress washes, and it's so nice outside."

"You rich folks certainly do have strange notions," declared Mrs. Fitch,
fingering the flounce on Victoria's skirt, which formed the subject of
conversation for the next few minutes.

"How are you getting on?" Victoria asked at length.

A look of pain came into the woman's eyes.

"You've be'n so good to us, and done so much gettin' Eben a job on your
father's place, that I don't feel as if I ought to lie to you. He done
it again--on Saturday night. First time in three months. The manager up
at Fairview don't know it. Eben was all right Monday."

"I'm sorry," said Victoria, simply. "Was it bad?"

"It might have be'n. Young Mr. Vane is stayin' up at Jabe Jenney's--you
know, the first house as you turn off the hill road. Mr. Vane heard some
way what you'd done for us, and he saw Eben in Ripton Saturday night,
and made him get into his buggy and come home. I guess he had a time
with Eben. Mr. Vane, he came around here on Sunday, and gave him as
stiff a talkin' to as he ever got, I guess. He told Eben he'd ought to
be ashamed of himself goin' back on folks who was tryin' to help him pay
his mortgage. And I'll say this for Eben, he was downright ashamed. He
told Mr. Vane he could lick him if he caught him drunk again, and Mr.
Vane said he would. My, what a pretty colour you've got to-day."

Victoria rose. "I'm going to send you down some washing," she said.

Mrs. Fitch insisted upon untying the horse, while Victoria renewed her
promises to the children.

There were two ways of going back to Fairview,--a long and a short
way,--and the long way led by Jabe Jenney's farm. Victoria came to the
fork in the road, paused,--and took the long way. Several times after
this, she pulled her horse down to a walk, and was apparently on the
point of turning around again: a disinterested observer in a farm wagon,
whom she passed, thought that she had missed her road. "The first house
after you turn off the hill road," Mrs. Fitch had said. She could still,
of course, keep on the hill road, but that would take her to Weymouth,
and she would never get home.

It is useless to go into the reasons for this act of Victoria's. She did
not know them herself. The nearer Victoria got to Mr. Jenney's, the more
she wish