saying, "Good afternoon, Maggie; are you very busy, and wish I hadn't
come?"

"I am never too busy to see you," answered Margaret, at the same time
pushing toward Kate the little ottoman on which she always sat when in
that room.

Kate took the proffered seat, and throwing aside her bonnet, began
with, "Maggie, I want to tell you something, though I don't know as it
is quite right to do so; still you may as well hear it from me as any
one."

"Do pray tell," answered Mag, "I am dying with curiosity."

So Kate smoothed down her black silk apron, twisted one of her curls
into a horridly ugly shape, and commenced with, "What kind of a woman
is that Mrs. Carter, down in the village?"

Instantly Margaret's suspicions were aroused, and starting as if a
serpent had stung her, she exclaimed, "Mrs. Carter! is it of her you
will tell me? She is a most dangerous woman--a woman whom your mother
would call a 'snake in the grass.'"

"Precisely so," answered Kate. "That is just what mother says of her,
and yet nearly all the village are ready to fall down and worship
her."

"Let them, then," said Mag; "I have no objections, provided they keep
their molten calf to themselves. No one wants her here. But what is it
about her?--tell me."