get time. It's
right hard to give up hope--" she glanced at her mother and lowered her
voice. "To stop--anyhow--I thought I might teach Hoyle a little."

"Ah, these are mostly school-books," he said, glancing them over.

"Yes, I was at school this time--near Farington it was. Once I stayed
with Bishop Towahs and helped do housework. I could learn a heap
there--between times. They let me have all the books I wanted to read."
She looked lovingly at her few precious school-books. "I haven't touched
these since I got back--we're that busy."

Then she resumed her work about the house, cooking at the fireplace,
waiting upon David, and serving her mother, while directing Hoyle what
to do, should she be detained that night. He demurred and hung about
her, begging her not to stay.

"I won't, son, without I can't help it. You won't care so much
now--mother's not bad like she was."

"Yas, I will," he mourned.

"I reckon I'll have to call you 'baby' again," said his mother. "You're
gettin' that babyfied since Cass come back doin' all fer ye. You has a
heap o' company. Thar's the cow to keer fer, 'n' ol' Pete hollerin' at
ye, an' the chickens tellin' how many aigs they've laid fer ye. Run now.
Thar's ol' Frizzle cacklin'. Get the aig, an' we'll send hit to the pore
sick man. Thar, Cass," she added, as Hoyle ran out, half ashamed, to do
her bidding--"hit's your own fault fer makin' such a baby of him. I 'low
you betteh take 'long a few fresh aigs; likely they'll need 'em, so
triflin' they be. I don't guess you'll find a thing in the house fer him
to eat."

Cassandra packed one of her oddly shaped little baskets, as her mother
suggested, for the sadly demoralized and distracted family to which they
were going, and tucked in with the rest the warm, newly laid egg Hoyle
brought her, smiling indulgently, and kissing his upturned face as she
took it from him.

Toward David she was always entirely simple and natural, except when
abashed by his speech, which seemed to her most elaborate and sometimes
mystifying. She would pause and gaze on him an instant when he extended
to her a courtesy, as if to give it its exact value. Not that she in the
least distrusted him, quite the contrary, but that she was wholly unused
to hearing phrased courtesies, or enthusiasms expressed in the form of
words.

She had seen something of it in the bishop's pretty complimentary
pleasantries with his wife, but David's manner of handing her a chair,
o