immediate effect of it was to foster the delusion that there was a
mysterious affinity between ugliness and virtue.

"Tell me what it is, Judy. Can I help you?" he said kindly.

"It's nothin'. I am always in trouble," she answered, sobbing outright
behind her sunbonnet. "Between pa and my stepmother, there isn't a spot
on earth I can rest in."

She looked at him and he knew immediately, from her look, that
neither Solomon Hatch nor his second wife was responsible for Judy's
unhappiness. For a mocking instant it occurred to him that she might
have cherished a secret and perfectly hopeless passion for himself. That
she might be cherishing this passion for another, he did not consider at
the moment--though the truth was that her divinity inhabited not a mill,
but a church, and was, therefore, she felt, trebly unapproachable. But
her worship was increased by this very hopelessness, this elevation. It
pleased her that the object of her adoration should bend always above
her--that in her dreams he should preach a perpetual sermon and wear an
imperishable surplice.

"Well, I'm sorry for you," said Abel; "I'm sorry for you." And indeed he
was. "You're a good, pious, virtuous girl--just the sort of a girl a man
would want for his wife."

"I try to be good and I don't see why I should be so--so unhappy,"
sobbed Judy. "There ain't a better hand for raisin' chickens and flowers
and young lambs in the county."

Again she looked up at him through her tears, and the fool that lies at
the bottom of all generous hearts rose instantly to her bait. As he had
once been the sport of his desire, so he was to become now the sport of
his pity.

"Any man ought to be proud to have you for his wife, Judy," he said.

"Ought they, Abel?" she replied passionately, with the vision of the
Reverend Orlando rising in serene detachment before her.

For a moment he gazed down at her without speaking. It was pleasant to
feel pity; it was more than pleasant to receive gratitude in return. On
the raw wound in his heart something that was almost like a cooling balm
had been poured.

"God knows I'm sorry for you, Judy," he repeated; "we're both in the
same boat, so I ought to be. Come to me if I can ever help you, and
you'll find you may count on my word."

"I--I'll remember, Abel," she answered tearfully, but her thoughts
were of a certain pair of purple velvet slippers, begun in rivalry of
Blossom's black ones, which she was embroidering in pans