n work--worth all that money,
and sending her niece out to get sewing to do! I don't believe but
what she's most starved her."

It was true that Lois for the last week had not had enough to eat,
but neither had her mother. The two had been eking out the remnants
of Lois's school-money as best they might. There were many provisions
in the pantry and cellar of the Maxwell house, but they would touch
none of them. Some money which Mr. Tuxbury had paid to Mrs.
Field--the first instalment from the revenue of her estate--she had
put carefully away in a sugar-bowl on the top shelf of the china
closet, and had not spent a penny of it. After Lois began to sew, her
slender earnings provided them with the most frugal fare. Mrs. Field
eked it out in every way that she could. She had a little vegetable
garden and kept a few hens. As the season advanced, she scoured the
berry pastures, and spent many hours stooping painfully over the low
bushes. Three months from the time at which she came to Elliot, on
the day on which her neighbors started from Green River to visit her,
she was out in the pasture trying to fill her pail with blueberries.
All the sunlight seemed to centre on her black figure like a
burning-glass; the thick growth of sweet-fern around the blueberry
bushes sent a hot and stifling aroma into her face; the wild flowers
hung limply, like delicate painted rags, and the rocks were like
furnaces. Mrs. Field went out soon after dinner, and at half-past
five she was still picking; the berries were not very plentiful.

Lois, at home, wondered why she did not return, and the more because
there was a thunder-storm coming up. There was a heavy cloud in the
northwest, and a steady low rumble of thunder. Lois sat out in the
front yard sewing; her face was pink and moist with the heat; the
sleeves of her old white muslin dress clung to her arms. Presently
the gate clicked, and Mrs. Jane Maxwell's daughter Flora came toward
her over the grass.

"Hullo!" said she.

"Hullo!" returned Lois.

"It's a terrible day--isn't it?"

"Terrible!"

Lois got up, but Flora would not take her chair. She sat down
clumsily on the pine needles, and fanned herself with the cover of a
book she carried.

"I've just been down to the library, an' got this book," she
remarked.

"Is it good?"

"They say it's real good. Addie Green's been reading it."

Flora wore a bright blue cambric dress and a brown straw hat. Her
figure was stout and high-s