o her head that those she has been brought up with
are not good enough for her. They may not be, but we are here and likely
to stay here, and once a girl gets her head full o' high notions and
that she's better than the rest, it's all day with her."

"Thar ain't no use interferin'," Jess responded, "whatever notions
Mona's got, she's got, an' ye can't change 'em. If she likes the smell
o' wild roses better'n fishin' togs, she does; and if she turns up her
nose at them as don't think 'nough o' pleasin' her ter change togs when
they come round, I 'gree with her. Wimmin, an' young wimmin 'specially,
air notional, an' though most on 'em 'round here has ter work purty
hard, it ain't no sign their notions shouldn't be considered. I've
stayed in houses whar wimmin wa'n't 'lowed to lift a finger an' had
sarvants ter fan 'em when 'twas hot, an' though that ain't no sign
Mona'll git it done for her, I hope I'll never live ter see her drudgin'
like some on 'em here."

"If you'd had the bringing o' Mona up," Mrs. Hutton had responded rather
sharply, "you would a-made a doll baby out o' her, an' only fit to have
servants to fan her." At which parting shot, Jess had usually taken to
his heels, muttering, "It's a waste o' time argufyin' with a woman."

But Mrs. Hutton was far from being as "sot" in her way as might be
inferred, as she always had, and still desired, to rear her only child
in the way she considered best, and in accordance with her surroundings.
To be a fine lady on Rockhaven, as Mrs. Hutton would put it, was
impossible; and unless Mona was likely to be transplanted to another
world, as it were, it seemed wisest to keep her from exalted ideas and
high-bred tastes. But back of that, and deep in the mother's love, lay
the hope of better things for her child than she had known, though how
they were to come, and in what way, she could not see.

Mere pebbles of chance shape our destiny, and so it was in the life of
Winn Hardy, and the trifle, light as air, that turned his footsteps, was
the sound of church bells that Sunday morning in Rockhaven.

Had they not recalled his boyhood, he would have spent the day in
roaming over the island as he had planned, instead of accepting Mrs.
Moore's invitation to accompany her to church, with the sequence of
events that followed. And the one most potent was the accent of
cordiality in Mrs. Hutton's neighborly invitation to call. It may be
supposed, and naturally, that the expressive e