if I had
company?" she interrogated Caroline.

"Nothin', on'y they say Susan's boy's round here."

"Susan's boy? From out West?"

Caroline nodded.

"He was into Mis' Flood's yesterday," she said, "inquirin' all about
you. Said he hadn't seen you sence he was a little feller. Said he
shouldn't hardly dast to call, now you an' his mother wa'n't on terms.
Seems 's if he knew all about that trouble over the land."

Hetty's face lighted scornfully.

"Trouble over the land!" she echoed. "Who made the trouble? That's what
I want to know--who made it? Susan Hill May, that's who made it. You
needn't look at me, Lucy. I ain't pious, as you be, an' I don't care if
she is my step-sister. You know how 'twas, as well as I do. Mother left
me the house because I was a widder an' poor as poverty, an' she left
Susan the pastur'. 'Twas always understood I was to pastur' my cow in
that pastur', Susan livin' out West an' all, an' I always had, sence
Benjamin died; but the minute mother left me the house, Susan May set up
her Ebenezer I shouldn't have the use o' that pastur'. She's way out
West there, an' she don't want it; but she'd see it sunk ruther'n I
should have the good on 't."

"Well," said Lucy soothingly, "you ain't pastur'd there sence she forbid
it."

"No, I guess I ain't," returned Hetty, rising to go. "Nor I ain't set
foot in it. What's Mis' Flood say about Susan's boy?" she asked
abruptly, turning to Caroline.

"Well,"--Caroline hesitated,--"she said he was in liquor when he called,
an' she heard he'd be'n carryin' on some over to the Street."

Hetty nodded grimly. She spoke with an exalted sadness.

"I ain't surprised. Susan drove her husband to drink, an' she'd drive a
saint. Well, my Willard was as good a boy as ever stepped. That's all I
got to say."

The sisters had exchanged according glances, and Caroline asked:--

"Stay an' set down with us? It's b'iled dish. I guess you can smell
it."

Hetty was drawing her shawl about her. She shook her head.

"No," said she. "'Bleeged to ye. I'll pick up suthin'."

But later, entering her own kitchen, she stopped and drew a sharp
breath, like an outcry against the desolation there. The room was in its
homely order, to be broken, she felt, no more. She was childless. All
the zest of work had gone. She threw off her shawl then, with a savage
impatience at her own grief, and began her tasks. In the midst of them
she paused, laid down her cooking-spoon, and sank in