ng in regard to his future as well as her
own.

Jane, quite forgotten, was oppressed with a miserable presentiment of
evil. Her pinched but intense little mind was concentrated on two
facts--Holcroft's anger and her mother's lack of sense. From such
premises it did not take her long to reason out but one
conclusion--"visitin' again;" and this was the summing up of all evils.
Now and then a tear would force its way out of one of her little eyes,
but otherwise she kept her troubles to herself.

Mrs. Wiggins was the only complacent personage in the house, and she
unbent with a garrulous affability to Jane, which could be accounted
for in but one way--Holcroft had forgotten about his cider barrel,
thereby unconsciously giving her the chance to sample its contents
freely. She was now smoking her pipe with much content, and indulging
in pleasing reminiscences which the facts of her life scarcely
warranted.

"Ven hi vas as leetle a gal as ye are," she began, and then she related
experiences quite devoid of the simplicity and innocence of childhood.
The girl soon forgot her fears and listened with avidity until the old
dame's face grew heavier, if possible, with sleep, and she stumbled off
to bed.

Having no wish to see or speak to her mother again, the child blew out
the candle and stole silently up the stairway. At last Mrs. Mumpson
took her light and went noisily around, seeing to the fastenings of
doors and windows. "I know he is listening to every sound from me, and
he shall learn what a caretaker I am," she murmured softly.

Once out of doors in the morning, with his foot on the native heath of
his farm, Holcroft's hopefulness and courage always returned. He was
half angry with himself at his nervous irritation of the evening
before. "If she becomes so cranky that I can't stand her, I'll pay the
three months' wages and clear her out," he had concluded, and he went
about his morning work with a grim purpose to submit to very little
nonsense.

Cider is akin to vinegar, and Mrs. Wiggins' liberal potations of the
evening before had evidently imparted a marked acidity to her temper.
She laid hold of the kitchen utensils as if she had a spite against
them, and when Jane, confiding in her friendliness shown so recently,
came down to assist, she was chased out of doors with language we
forbear to repeat. Mrs. Mumpson, therefore, had no intimation of the
low state of the barometer in the region of the kitchen. "I have