bemoan the wrongs from which I suffer. You little know, Jane, you
little know a mother's heart."

"No," assented Jane. "I dunno nothin' about it."

"What wonder, then that I weep, when even my child is so unnatural!"

"I dunno how to be anything else but what I be," replied the girl in
self-defense.

"If you would only yield more to my guidance and influence, Jane, the
future might be brighter for us both. If you had but stored up the
Fifth Commandment in memory--but I forbear. You cannot so far forget
your duty as not to tell me how HE behaved at dinner."

"He looked awful glum, and hardly said a word."

"Ah-h!" exclaimed the widow, "the spell is working."

"If you aint a-workin' tomorrow, there'll be a worse spell," the girl
remarked.

"That will do, Jane, that will do. You little understand--how should
you? Please keep an eye on him, and let me know how he looks and what
he is doing, and whether his face still wears a gloomy or a penitent
aspect. Do as I bid you, Jane, and you may unconsciously secure your
own well-being by obedience."

Watching anyone was a far more congenial task to the child than
learning the Commandments, and she hastened to comply. Moreover, she
had the strongest curiosity in regard to Holcroft herself. She felt
that he was the arbiter of her fate. So untaught was she that delicacy
and tact were unknown qualities. Her one hope of pleasing was in work.
She had no power of guessing that sly espionage would counterbalance
such service. Another round of visiting was dreaded above all things;
she was, therefore, exceedingly anxious about the future. "Mother may
be right," she thought. "P'raps she can make him marry her, so we
needn't go away any more. P'raps she's taken the right way to bring a
man around and get him hooked, as Cousin Lemuel said. If I was goin'
to hook a man though, I'd try another plan than mother's. I'd keep my
mouth shut and my eyes open. I'd see what he wanted and do it, even
'fore he spoke. 'Fi's big anuf I bet I could hook a man quicker'n she
can by usin' her tongue 'stead of her hands."

Jane's scheme was not so bad a one but that it might be tried to
advantage by those so disposed. Her matrimonial prospects, however,
being still far in the future, it behooved her to make her present
existence as tolerable as possible. She knew how much depended on
Holcroft, and was unaware of any other method of learning his purposes
except that of watching him.