lls. It had had its beginning in that first small mill where
the first Forsyth worked in his shirt-sleeves; a cluster of houses had
sprung up close to the river, a store, more houses, more stores, a
tavern, a church, a school. And as the Mills grew, so grew the village.
For themselves the Forsyth family had built the stone house on the hill,
that looked, indeed, like a grand old woman holding off her skirts from
contamination. And that lofty apartness had always been the attitude of
the Forsyth family to the workaday life in the village.

The growth of the village had been toward the railroad so that the first
Mill houses had been left by themselves "up the river" and were commonly
known as the "old village." They were so old that they were not worth
keeping in repair and so close to the river that they were damp the year
round and for these very good reasons were offered to the mill workers
at a low rental. Many of the mill workers--such as Dale--looked upon
them as a disgrace to the Mills and felt a hot anger in their hearts
when they thought of them--but unfortunates like the Castles were glad
to move into the worst of them.

The short walk from the Mills to the old village skirted the river and
was overhung with a double row of willows which, on this wintry day,
cast long purple shadows. Robin, walking along it with Mrs. Lynch,
thought it lovely and solemn--like a cathedral aisle. But when they
stopped before a low cottage, one window nailed across with boards where
the panes were missing, the front door propped in place by a rotting
rail tie, tin cans and frozen refuse littering the strip of yard, and
Mrs. Lynch said "This is the house," she wanted to cry out in protest at
the ugliness. They had to pick their way around to a back door upon
which Mrs. Lynch knocked. Several moments elapsed before the door swung
back a little way, a round black eye peered at them cautiously, and a
shrill voice piped "whachy'want?"

"I s'pose that's Susy," thought Robin, her heart skipping a beat with a
terror of shyness.

Mrs. Lynch's pleasant: "We want to see Granny," admitted them. Robin,
blinded for the first moment of coming into the darkness of the room
from the bright sunshine outside, stumbled over a chair and in her
confusion mumbled some incoherent answer to the shrill cackle of welcome
that came from the shrunken bit of humanity bending over a small stove.

"Poor Granny doesn't understand who you are," explained Mrs. Ly