a of his that he was
bound to take care of Jim Millon's worthless wife and her child because
Millon had got the bullet that was meant for him. It was a perfect
superstition of his; she could not beat it out of him; but she had made
him promise the last time he had done anything for that woman that it
should BE the last time. He had then got her a little house in one of
the fishing ports, where she could take the sailors to board and wash
for, and earn an honest living if she would keep straight. That was
five or six years ago, and Mrs. Lapham had heard nothing of Mrs. Millon
since; she had heard quite enough of her before; and had known her idle
and baddish ever since she was the worst little girl at school in
Lumberville, and all through her shameful girlhood, and the married
days which she had made so miserable to the poor fellow who had given
her his decent name and a chance to behave herself. Mrs. Lapham had no
mercy on Moll Millon, and she had quarrelled often enough with her
husband for befriending her. As for the child, if the mother would put
Zerrilla out with some respectable family, that would be ONE thing; but
as long as she kept Zerrilla with her, she was against letting her
husband do anything for either of them. He had done ten times as much
for them now as he had any need to, and she had made him give her his
solemn word that he would do no more. She saw now that she was wrong
to make him give it, and that he must have broken it again and again
for the reason that he had given when she once scolded him for throwing
away his money on that hussy--

"When I think of Jim Millon, I've got to; that's all."

She recalled now that whenever she had brought up the subject of Mrs.
Millon and her daughter, he had seemed shy of it, and had dropped it
with some guess that they were getting along now. She wondered that
she had not thought at once of Mrs. Millon when she saw that memorandum
about Mrs. M.; but the woman had passed so entirely out of her life,
that she had never dreamt of her in connection with it. Her husband
had deceived her, yet her heart was no longer hot against him, but
rather tenderly grateful that his deceit was in this sort, and not in
that other. All cruel and shameful doubt of him went out of it. She
looked at this beautiful girl, who had blossomed out of her knowledge
since she saw her last, and she knew that she was only a blossomed
weed, of the same worthless root as her mother, a