r standing sharp in her hat. They drew up
at a small white house in the woods. Yellow leaves were falling about
it. A peacock spread the harsh alarm of their arrival. The old woman
commanded Milford to get out and to wait for her. She did not know how
long she might stay. A woman opened the door for them. Mrs. Stuvic
recognized her as the mother of the girl from the poor-house. Milford
sat down in the dreary passage-way. Mrs. Stuvic followed the woman into
a room. The lines about her mouth tightened as she caught sight of her
sister, on a bed in a corner. She drew up a chair, and sat down by the
bedside.

"What's the matter, Nan?"

The sister slowly turned upon her pillow and looked at her with gaunt
eyes and open mouth.

"Dying," she whispered in her hard breathing.

"Do you think you be?"

"I know it--taken last night--doctor's gone. Couldn't do anythin'. Worn
out, Mary Ann."

"No, Nan, you just think you be. Look at me. I've had twice as much
trouble as you."

The dying woman slowly shook her head. "It's been all trouble--nothin'
but trouble. Mary Ann, you know the threat I made."

"Don't now--keep still."

"Well, the Lord has taken that out of my heart. Do you think--think you
could kiss me, Mary Ann?"

Milford heard the old woman sob, and he walked out beneath the trees
where the leaves were falling. The day grew yellow, and brown, and the
stars came out, and still he waited, with the leaves falling slowly in
the quiet air. The insects sang, and sitting with his back against a
tree, he fell asleep. Something touched him. He looked up with a start,
and there stood Mrs. Stuvic, her feather sharp in the moonlight. "Drive
me home," she said.

On the way home she did not speak, but when the buggy drew up at the
gate she said: "If there's a God--and there must be one--I thank him for
the tears I've shed this night. Now, you keep still. Turn the pony loose
and go home. Don't come into the house. I don't want to see anybody.
Keep all my affairs to yourself and you'll make no mistake."

CHAPTER XX.

THE CUP AND THE SLIP.

In a pelting rain a funeral passed along the road, and a man who had no
time for such affairs, hastening with his milk-cans to the railway
station, caught sight of Mrs. Stuvic's face, pressed against the
water-streaked glass of a carriage window. He lashed his team to make up
for loss of time in turning aside; he wondered at the mysterious tie
that could have drawn her out, not