necessity for her to make a slave of herself: but she refused to listen.
Economy was a part of her nature, and besides that she meant to show
them that she was perfectly independent of the whole tribe; the _tribe_
and _them_ referring to the hired girls alone, for she knew no one else
in town.

Nobody had called except the clergyman, not even Mrs. Crawford, whose
friendship and possible advice Mrs. Tracy had counted upon, and with
whom she knew she should feel more at ease than with Mrs. Atherton from
Brier Hill, or Miss Hastings from Collingwood. She had seen both the
last named ladies at church and had a nod from Mrs. Atherton, and that
was all the recognition she had received from her neighbors up to the
hot July morning, a week or more after the house-maid's departure, when
she was busy in the kitchen canning black raspberries, of which the
garden was full.

Like many housekeepers who do their own work, Dolly was not very
particular with regard to her dress in the morning, and on this occasion
her hair was drawn from her rather high forehead, and twisted into a
hard knot at the back of her head; her calico dress hung straight dawn,
for she was minus hoops, which in those days were worn quite large; her
sleeves were rolled above her elbows, and, as a protection against the
juice of the berries, she wore a huge apron made of sacking. In this
garb, and with no thought of being interrupted, she kept on with her
work until the last kettle of fruit, was boiling and bubbling on the
stove, and she was just glancing at the clock to see if it were time to
put over the peas for dinner, when there came a quick, decisive ring at
the front door.

'Who can that be?' she said to herself, as she wiped her hands upon her