ne class of women, and that the ignorant, ill-bred
gossip-mongers of his own village. Consequently, he was in momentary
fear of having his recent escapade brought to light, and becoming the
laughing stock of the place, for having fallen in love with, and been
snubbed by the pretty young school mistress.

He was possessed of a sufficient share of low cunning to enable him,
finally, to hit upon a plan by which he hoped this catastrophe might be
averted. There upon he proceeded to unfold to the astonished partner of
his joys and sorrows, that he was glad Miss Graystone had left the
house, for he considered her a dangerous person to enter any family
circle; that she had sought, with great assiduity, while she had been an
inmate of his house, to bring misery and disgrace beneath that peaceful
roof, by beguiling away the affections of the fond husband and father,
and that, like a second Joseph, he had come through the trial manfully.
This was enough, and more than enough, for a woman like the one who
listened in open-mouthed wonder to every word.

Before a week rolled away, every one knew the story of Farmer Owen's
struggles and triumph. Not that any one, even to his own injured wife,
for a moment, believed the assertion. Not she. Even with her obtuse
intellect, she was a woman, and consequently her wits were too sharp to
allow her to be imposed upon by that palpable fiction. She knew, as well
as she wanted to, that her dear Amos had been indignantly put in his
place by Clemence, if he had made the slightest impudent advance.

She knew, too, by intuition, that even had Clemence been of the class
her husband, governed by his malevolent feelings, wished to have her
appear, she would look higher than these boorish, homespun farmers. In
short, she fully realized that the girl despised her husband so utterly
that she barely treated him with politeness.

But all this did not affect her in regard to the feeling she had for
Clemence now, and only a woman can understand how the knowledge of the
girl's innocence only made her hate her the more. She knew that her
husband was considered too much an object of contempt to be feared at
all in regard to what he could either say or do.

One would have thought, too, that any one with the least generosity of
sentiment, might have remembered her praiseworthy efforts in her own
behalf, and the long hours the young teacher had spent in the vain
attempt to make her more presentable in the eyes