very different
from yours."

"Shouldn't wonder if you was sorry some day," the girl had remarked,
and so the matter had dropped and been forgotten.

Holcroft solaced himself with the fact that Jane and Mrs. Wiggins
served his meals regularly and looked after the dairy with better care
than it had received since his wife died. "If I had only those two in
the house, I could get along first-rate," he thought. "After the three
months are up, I'll try to make such an arrangement. I'd pay the
mother and send her off now, but if I did, Lemuel Weeks would put her
up to a lawsuit."

April days brought the longed-for plowing and planting, and the farmer
was so busy and absorbed in his work that Mrs. Mumpson had less and
less place in his thoughts, even as a thorn in the flesh. One bright
afternoon, however, chaos came again unexpectedly. Mrs. Wiggins did
not suggest a volatile creature, yet such, alas! she was. She
apparently exhaled and was lost, leaving no trace. The circumstances
of her disappearance permit of a very matter-of-fact and not very
creditable explanation. On the day in question she prepared an
unusually good dinner, and the farmer had enjoyed it in spite of Mrs.
Mumpson's presence and desultory remarks. The morning had been fine
and he had made progress in his early spring work. Mrs. Wiggins felt
that her hour and opportunity had come. Following him to the door, she
said in a low tone and yet with a decisive accent, as if she was
claiming a right, "Master, hi'd thank ye for me two weeks' wages."

He unsuspectingly and unhesitatingly gave it to her, thinking, "That's
the way with such people. They want to be paid often and be sure of
their money. She'll work all the better for having it."

Mrs. Wiggins knew the hour when the stage passed the house; she had
made up a bundle without a very close regard to meum or tuum, and was
ready to flit. The chance speedily came.

The "caretaker" was rocking in the parlor and would disdain to look,
while Jane had gone out to help plant some early potatoes on a warm
hillside. The coast was clear. Seeing the stage coming, the old woman
waddled down the lane at a remarkable pace, paid her fare to town, and
the Holcroft kitchen knew her no more.

That she found the "friend" she had wished to see on her way out to the
farm, and that this friend brought her quickly under Tom Watterly's
care again, goes without saying.

As the shadows lengthened and the robins beca