d that he had two thieves to deal with instead of one--brazen,
incompetent creatures who knew more about whisky than milk, and who
made his home a terror to him.

Some asked good-naturedly, "Why don't you marry again?" Not only was
the very thought repugnant, but he knew well that he was not the man to
thrive on any such errand to the neighboring farmhouses. Though
apparently he had little sentiment in his nature, yet the memory of his
wife was like his religion. He felt that he could not put an ordinary
woman into his wife's place, and say to her the words he had spoken
before. Such a marriage would be to him a grotesque farce, at which
his soul revolted.

At last he was driven to the necessity of applying for help to an Irish
family that had recently moved into the neighborhood. The promise was
forbidding, indeed, as he entered the squalid abode in which were
huddled men, women, and children. A sister of the mistress of the
shanty was voluble in her assurances of unlimited capability.

"Faix I kin do all the wourk, in doors and out, so I takes the notion,"
she had asserted.

There certainly was no lack of bone and muscle in the big, red-faced,
middle-aged woman who was so ready to preside at his hearth and glean
from his diminished dairy a modicum of profit; but as he trudged home
along the wintry road, he experienced strong feelings of disgust at the
thought of such a creature sitting by the kitchen fire in the place
once occupied by his wife.

During all these domestic vicissitudes he had occupied the parlor, a
stiff, formal, frigid apartment, which had been rarely used in his
married life. He had no inclination for the society of his help; in
fact, there had been none with whom he could associate. The better
class of those who went out to service could find places much more to
their taste than the lonely farmhouse. The kitchen had been the one
cozy, cheerful room of the house, and, driven from it, the farmer was
an exile in his own home. In the parlor he could at least brood over
the happy past, and that was about all the solace he had left.

Bridget came and took possession of her domain with a sangfroid which
appalled Holcroft from the first. To his directions and suggestions,
she curtly informed him that she knew her business and "didn't want no
mon around, orderin' and interferin'."

In fact, she did appear, as she had said, capable of any amount of
work, and usually was in a mood to perform i