urn the
conversation had taken, "but, dear me, he, should make some
restitution."

"Restitution?" the other woman repeated, in a voice that cut like
thin ice--"Restitution! Does anyone speak to me of restitution? Can
anything bring back my poor Will from the grave? Can anything give
him back his chance in this world and the next? Can anything make me
forget the cold black loneliness of it all? I don't want Sandy
Braden's money. Let it perish with him! Can I take the price of my
husband's soul?"

Mrs. Cavers and Mrs. Burrell had gone to the farther end of the tent
as they spoke, and Pearl, seeing the drift of the conversation, had
absorbed Libby Anne's attention with a fascinating story about her
new dolls. Yet not one word of the conversation did Pearl miss.

Mrs. Burrell was surprised beyond measure at Mrs. Cavers's words, and
reproved her for them.

"It's really wrong of you, Mrs. Cavers, to feel so hard and bitter. I
am astonished to find that your heart is so hard. I am really."

"My heart is not hard, Mrs. Burrell," she said, quietly, her eyes
bright and tearless; "my heart is not hard or bitter--it's only
broken."

That night when Mrs. Burrell had gone, Pearl told Martha what she had
heard. "You see, Martha," she said, when she had related the
conversation, "Mrs. Burrell is all right, only her tongue. It was
nice of her to come--the things she brought Libby Anne are fine, and
there's nothing wrong with her five dollars; if she'd a been born
deaf and dumb she would have been a real nice woman, but the trouble
with her is she talks too easy. If she had to spell it off on her
fingers she'd be more careful of what she says, and it would give her
time to think."

The next time the doctor came, Mrs. Cavers insisted on paying him for
the tent and everything that was in it. There was a finality in her
manner that made argument useless.

The doctor was distressed and earnestly tried to dissuade her.

"Let me pay for it, Mrs. Cavers, then," he said. "Surely you are
willing that I should help you."

"Aren't you doing enough, doctor," she said. "You are giving your
time, your skill, for nothing. Oh doctor, don't you see you are
humiliating me by refusing to take this money?"

Then the doctor took the money, wondering with a heavy heart how he
could tell Sandy Braden.

CHAPTER XXXII

ANOTHER NEIGHBOUR

How fair a lot to fill
Is left for each man still!

_----Robert Browning._

THE early