still doubted;
and later, when the other women were removed from the spell of her
acting, their old suspicions returned. It was always a mooted
question in Elliot whether or not Mrs. Jane Maxwell had known of her
daughter's marriage. Not all her subsequent behavior, her meeting the
young couple with open arms at the station on their return, and
Flora's appearance at church the next Sunday in the silk dress which
her mother had concocted during her absence, could quite allay the
suspicion, although it prevented it from gaining ground.

All that evening Mrs. Maxwell's courage never flagged. She
entertained her guests as well as a woman of Sparta could have done.
She even had the coolness to prosecute other projects which she had
in mind. She kept Mrs. Field and Lois behind the rest, and walked
home with the mother, that Francis might have the girl to himself.
And she went into the house with Mrs. Field, and slipped a parcel
into her pocket, while the two young people had a parting word at the
gate.

Chapter VII

It was a hot afternoon in August. Amanda Pratt had set all her
windows wide open, but no breeze came in, only the fervid breath of
the fields and the white road outside.

She sat at a front window and darned a white stocking; her long, thin
arms and her neck showed faintly through her old loose muslin sacque.
The muslin was white, with a close-set lavender sprig, and she wore a
cameo brooch at her throat. The blinds were closed, and she had to
bend low over her mending in order to see in the green gloom.

Mrs. Babcock came toiling up the bank to the house, but Amanda did
not notice her until she reached the front door. Then she fetched a
great laboring sigh.

"Oh, hum!" said she, audibly, in a wrathful voice; "if I'd had any
idea of it, I wouldn't have come a step."

Then Amanda looked out with a start. "Is that you, Mis' Babcock?" she
called hospitably through the blind.

"Yes, it's me--what's left of me. Oh, hum! Oh, hum!"

Amanda ran and opened the door, and Mrs. Babcock entered, panting.
She had a green umbrella, which she furled with difficulty at the
door, and a palm-leaf fan. Her face, in the depths of her scooping
green barege bonnet, was dank with perspiration, and scowling with
indignant misery. She sank into a chair, and fanned herself with a
desperate air.

Amanda set her umbrella in the corner, then she stood looking
sympathetically at her. "It's a pretty hot day, ain't it?" said