ut merely a glad smile of relief. He had insisted upon her taking food,
drink, and rest before explaining anything, and Priscilla had gratefully
obeyed.

"I'll gather all the news that is floating about," Farwell had comforted
her. "Sleep, Priscilla. You are quite safe." Then he went out again.

So she had eaten ravenously and slept far into the early evening while
Anton Farwell went about listening to all who talked. It was a great day
for Kenmore!

"She and him were together all the night," panted Long Jean, about noon,
in the kitchen of the White Fish.

"What's that?" called Mary McAdam from the closet. Jean repeated her
choice morsel, and Mary Terhune, preparing the midday meal, thrilled.

"I was at her borning," Jean remarked, "and I minded then and spoke it
open, that she was made of the odds and ends of them who went before her.
I've a notion that the good and evil that might have thinned out over all
the Glenn girls must work out thick in Priscilla."

"I'm thinking," Mary Terhune broke in, "that the mingling with such as
visits at the Lodge has upset the young miss. Her airs and graces! Lord
of heaven! how she has flouted the rest of the young uns! Aye, but they
are mouthing about her this day! 'Me and her,' said Jerry-Jo to me this
early morning, 'me and her got caught up in the woods, and, understanding
one another, we chose the dry to the wet, and brought things to a point.
Her and me will make tracks for the States. It's all evened up.' And I do
say," Mary went on, "that all considering, Jerry-Jo is doing the handsome
thing. I ain't picking flaws in her--maybe she's as clean as the
cleanest, but there's them who wouldn't believe it, as you both very well
know."

This last was to include Mrs. McAdam, who had issued from the closet with
an ugly look on her thin, dark face.

"You old harpies!" she cried, striding to the middle of the big room and
getting into position for an oratorical outburst. "You two blighted old
midwives as ought, heaven knows, to have mercy on women; you who see the
tortures of women! You would take a girl's name from her on the word of
that half-breed, who would sooner lie than steal--and both are easy to
the whelp. That girl is the straightest girl that ever walked, and no
evil has come to her from my house. A word more like that, Mary Terhune,
and you'll never share my home again, and as for you, Jean, you who
helped the lass into life, what kind of a snake-heart have you?"