"Nor you don't help her neither, as I see," said the other.

"I believe in 'tendin' to your own affairs and not interferin' with
other folks," Lucas rejoined.

Armida was made very unhappy by these changes and the comments of the
neighbors, and would gladly have beautified her half also, but had no
money to spend. The farm had fallen behind, and she was pinched for
means. She did what she could, taking more care than usual of vines
and flowers, and even had an extra bed dug under her front windows,
where she had many bright-hued flowers; but as she rose from digging
around her plants and surveyed the house--Lucas's side with the new
green blinds and the clapboards shining with paint, hers with its
stained, weather-beaten appearance and its staring windows--she felt
ashamed and discouraged.

[Illustration: "AS ARMIDA SAT ON THE BENCH UNDER THE OLD RUSSET
APPLE-TREE, ... SHE ... LOOKED UP TO SEE A SHABBY, SHAMBLING, OLDISH
MAN COMING AROUND THE SIDE OF THE HOUSE."]

She feared her hired man was slack and neglected his work; yet when he
threatened to go, and afterward compromised the matter by offering to
stay if she'd marry him, at a loss what to do, and partly because
she was lonely, she married him. He was a respectable man, whose only
fault was laziness, and she hoped that now he would take an interest.
When Armida and her husband came back from the minister's and
announced to Lucas that they were married, his only comment was,
"Well, a slack help will make a shif'less husband."

Years went by, and Armida's side of the house fell more and more into
ruin; while Lucas, with what Armida considered cruel carefulness,
kept his in excellent repair and occasionally renewed the paint. The
contrast was so great that passers-by stopped their horses that they
might look and wonder at their leisure. Every glance was like a blow
to Armida, so that she avoided her sitting-room and kept herself
in the uncomfortable kitchen that was divided by an imaginary line
directly through the middle, a line never crossed by her brother, her
husband, or herself.

It would have looked absurd enough to a stranger to see this divided
room, with the brother clumsily carrying on his household affairs on
the one side and the sister doing her work on the other, with often
not a word exchanged between them for days together. Absurd it might
be, but it was certainly wretched. Armida grew old rapidly. Her
husband was a poor stick, and when, as y