ing alone, disconsolately, thinking of
this new trouble that threatened her peace, for she felt instinctively
that, in the last hour, she had made an enemy, to be shunned and dreaded
during the rest of her stay in Waveland.

"Well, thank God!" she said fervently, "that I am at least _safe_. I am
innocent of any wrong intent, and I know that I shall be upheld, now, as
in every other trouble that has come to me, and in the end, find
justification."

There was no one visible when she reached the house, but Mrs. Owen, who
sat with her dumpling of a baby, on the door-steps.

"La!" she ejaculated, as Clemence came in sight, walking wearily enough,
"what's the matter--be you sick?"

"No," said Clemence, sinking down beside her, "only tired."

"Well, you look as though you had seen a ghost, at the very least. There
ain't much to you, any way, you give out the easiest of anybody I ever
see. A good night's rest will help you, and you will be all right in
the morning."

"I have got to walk another mile before I obtain it, though," said
Clemence, rising. "I am going to spend to-morrow and Sunday with Mrs.
Hardyng."

"No, be you?" reiterated Mrs. Owen. "Sakes alive you'll never stand it
to walk way down there, and feeling tired out before you start. It will
be dark too, before you get there. I wish Amos was here, and I'd send
him along, too, but he went off somewhere, I don't know in what
direction, and ain't even been in to his supper. That makes me think,
you ain't had your's, neither. Better stay and let me get you a cup of
tea?"

Clemence thanked her languidly, said her friends would probably have
some waiting for her when she arrived, and bidding her good evening,
passed out of the gate, and the slight form was soon lost to view in the
deepening shadows of the night.

The young teacher's forebodings were soon to be realized. She was right.
She _had_ made an enemy of Mr. Owen, and he determined to make her feel
it henceforward, by every means in his power. In his petty way, he was
as particular about keeping up an outside appearance of respectability,
as any aristocratic member of a rich city church might be to cover up
their own glaring deficiencies. It would have ruined him as completely
in his little circle, to have been found out in his underhand tricks, as
though he had been of the consequence in other people's estimation that
he was in his own. He had never, in all his life, been accustomed to
mingle with but o