y.

Anne found her sitting sewing with the two girls, who were making a rag
hearthrug. With the nervousness of women of anxious temperaments she
began to explain their occupation, talking quickly in a voice with a
shrill recurring note.

"There's no waste in this house you see, Anne, and no drones in the
'ive. This bit of stuff was my grandmother's." She took up a fragment of
striped linsey, which one of the girls had just laid her hands upon. The
girl's sulky expression did not escape her.

"_Now_ then, what's the matter? _You're_ too proud, Miss. Keep a thing
seven years and it's sure to come in, _I_ say, and keep girls working,
and then they'll not get into trouble. Did you ever hear of anything so
disgraceful as that Jane Evans? She ought to be sent out of the place
with her servant and all. If it was a daughter o' mine, she'd travel far
enough before she saw her home again."

"It's very sad," replied Anne, "She's been led astray;" but the woman
interrupted, full of her virtue.

"Astray! She didn't want much leading I should think, sly thing! I know
those quiet ones. They're generally pretty deep. No! I've no
consideration whatever for a girl who gets herself into trouble. She's
nearly always to blame somewhere. You just take notice of _that_," she
added, turning to her daughters who were listening eagerly for details.

"I wonder she's the face to go about," said the elder girl, a very
pretty young woman of twenty, who, being engaged to a young carpenter,
assumed the virtue of a girl who'd no need to seek about for lovers, and
of a class whose sensibilities were shocked by this lapse. Her mother
looked mollified, and gazed at the girl's pretty face with satisfaction
in its comeliness for a few moments in silence. She was a delicate
woman, fretted by her nerves and the difficulty of making ends meet, but
she had real pleasure in her two girls, whose good looks and clever
taste in their clothes, made them always presentable.

"Some one ought to go and tell her what people think of her," said the
younger girl, who already showed her mother's nervous expression.

"Do it yourself," said her sister with a careless laugh.

"Nay, _I_ shan't interfere," replied the girl.

"You'd better not," said the mother. "You keep out of such things and
it'll be better for you. Well, here's Anne sitting with her plums.
You're very lucky to have a good tree like that," she added, as she
uncovered the basket. "We haven't a singl