the large-shouldered blond young man that
came down after the hat; and Sylvia confided to Maggie that he had
asked permission to call to see her the next summer, when he should
come East after his graduation. Margaret had no other company, and she
regularly looked for Sylvia on the evenings when she was alone,
brightening the kitchen for the occasion so much as to convince the
"down-stairs girl" that sly Maggie was accustomed to receive a beau in
her absence.

One evening Miss Thorne found Maggie in tears.

"I've a mind to tell you all about it," said the girl, in answer to the
inquiries of Sylvia, at the same time pushing her hair back off her
face and leaning her head on her hands while she rested her elbows on
the table.

"Maybe it will do you good to tell me," answered Sylvia, concealing her
eager curiosity behind her desire to serve Margaret.

"Well, you see, miss, my sister Dora is purty."

"So are you, Maggie."

"No, but Dora is a young thing, and kind of helpless, like a baby. I
was the oldest, and that Dora was my baby, like. Well, Andy Doyle and
me were always friends. I wish I hadn't never seen him. But he seemed
to be the nicest fellow in the world. There was never anything said
between him an' me, only--well--but I can't tell ye--you're so
young--you don't know about such things."

"Yes, I do. You loved him, didn't you?"

"You see, miss, he was always so good. Dora, she hadn't no end of b'ys
that liked her. But anything that I had she always wanted, you may say,
and I always 'umored her in a way. She was young and a kind of a baby,
an' she is that purty, Miss Sylvy. Well, one of us had to go out to
work in the mill, an' my mother, she said that Dora must go, because
Dora wasn't any good about the house to speak of. She never knew how to
do anything right. But Dora cried, and said she couldn't work in the
mill, and so I went down to Larne to work in the mill, and Dora
promised to look after the house. Now, at the time I went away Dora was
all took up with Billy Caughey, and we thought sure as could be it was
a match. But what does that girl do but desave Billy, and catch Andy. I
don't think, miss, that he ever half loved her, but then I don't know
what she made him believe; and then, ye know, nobody ever could refuse
Dora anything, with her little beggin', winnin' ways. She just dazed
him and got him engaged to her; and I don't believe he was ever
entirely happy with her. But what could I do, miss