ng her cheeks in the grass. Generally
at such times she did not think of anything, but lay immersed in an
inarticulate well-being. Today the sense of well-being was intensified
by her joy at escaping from the library. She liked well enough to have a
friend drop in and talk to her when she was on duty, but she hated to be
bothered about books. How could she remember where they were, when they
were so seldom asked for? Orma Fry occasionally took out a novel, and
her brother Ben was fond of what he called "jography," and of books
relating to trade and bookkeeping; but no one else asked for anything
except, at intervals, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," or "Opening of a Chestnut
Burr," or Longfellow. She had these under her hand, and could have
found them in the dark; but unexpected demands came so rarely that they
exasperated her like an injustice....

She had liked the young man's looks, and his short-sighted eyes, and his
odd way of speaking, that was abrupt yet soft, just as his hands were
sun-burnt and sinewy, yet with smooth nails like a woman's. His hair was
sunburnt-looking too, or rather the colour of bracken after frost; his
eyes grey, with the appealing look of the shortsighted, his smile shy
yet confident, as if he knew lots of things she had never dreamed of,
and yet wouldn't for the world have had her feel his superiority. But
she did feel it, and liked the feeling; for it was new to her. Poor and
ignorant as she was, and knew herself to be--humblest of the humble
even in North Dormer, where to come from the Mountain was the worst
disgrace--yet in her narrow world she had always ruled. It was partly,
of course, owing to the fact that lawyer Royall was "the biggest man
in North Dormer"; so much too big for it, in fact, that outsiders,
who didn't know, always wondered how it held him. In spite of
everything--and in spite even of Miss Hatchard--lawyer Royall ruled in
North Dormer; and Charity ruled in lawyer Royall's house. She had never
put it to herself in those terms; but she knew her power, knew what it
was made of, and hated it. Confusedly, the young man in the library
had made her feel for the first time what might be the sweetness of
dependence.

She sat up, brushed the bits of grass from her hair, and looked down on
the house where she held sway. It stood just below her, cheerless and
untended, its faded red front divided from the road by a "yard" with
a path bordered by gooseberry bushes, a stone well overgrown wit